Frederic Ozanam, professor at the Sorbonne : his life and works

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University of Toronto

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Frederic Ozanam,

PROFESSOR AT THE SORBONNE.

HIS LIFE AND WORKS.

^

BY

KATHLEEN O'MEARA,

(GRACE RAMSAY,)

AUTHOR OF "IZA's STORY," "THOMAS GRANT, FIRST BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK,'
"a salon in the LAST DAYS OF THK EMPIRE " ETC.

0.

WITH A PREFACE

BY HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL MANNING.

jFourti) ^merican IStritfon,

^^> PAimCK'&

^atholic Forum

"TilW^YoRK:
THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY CO.,
12 East 17th Street.

1891.

CONTENTS

PACK

Preface, *^

CHAPTER I.— 1813-31.

Antiquity of the family of the Ozanams— family treasures— story of Jere-
miah Hozannam— Jacques Ozanam and his nephew Benedict— Career
of Antoine, father of Frederic— Birth of Frederic at Milan, in 1813— Set-
tlement of his father in Lyons as a physician— Characteristics of Frede-
ric's childhood— Early confessions— School Ufe— Period of questioning
and doubt— Becomes a pupil of Abbe Noirot— Noirot's testimony regard-
ing him— Becomes clerk in an attorney's office— Writes a treatise
against the St. Simonians— receives congratulations from M. de Lamar-
tine— Studies the state of society in France— Views and ambitions at
the age of seventeen— Programme of future work— His ideas of true
glory— His freedom from the mere ambition of making money and a
position, in the worldly sense, '

CHAPTER II.— 1831.

Ozanam enters on his legal studies in Paris-first experiences-Stands
aloof from his fellow-students at the Ecole de Droit, on account of their
opinions— Boarding-house grievances— Impressions of Paris— Visit to
M Ampere: becomes an inmate of his house— his new manner. of lii"e
described-First interview with M. Chateaubriand-Aim of his studies
—longing for noble work— Opposing school of Philosophy— the Ration-
alistic and the Traditional, '7

CHAPTER III.— 1831.

State of religion in France subsequent to the Revolution— Reign of
Atheism— Napoleon— The Abbe Fournier— the Concordat of 1801—
Radical Catholicism of France— Attitude of Napoleon towards the
Church— His policy towards the clergy— And the press— How he dealt
with the department of Public Instruction— Imperial University— His
instructions to the Minister of Public Worshipv-divorce established-the
Sabbath altered— The Concordat of Fontainebleau, Napoleon, and Pope
Pius VII.— Fall of Napoleon and restoration of the Bourbons— the
reign of faith restored only in appearance— Attempt at converting the
nation— Revival of Voltairianism— Ozanam, in his capacity of a Chns-
tian teacher, a witness for God to his generation 25

iv Contents

CHAPTER IV.— 1832.

PAG«

State of society in France after the Revolution of 1830— The Abbe de
Lamennais — Incident connected with M. Letrone's lectures at the Col-
lege de France — Ozanam and Lallier — Catholic young men finding each
other out — Rationalism and Revelation — letter to Ernest Falconnet —
Conferences of the Abbe Gerbet — Passage of arms between Professor
Jouffroy and a young Catholic at the Sorbonne — Result of this on Oza-
nam, and en the tone of the teaching of the Professors, .... 41

CHAPTER v.— 1833.

Advantages accruing to Ozanam from his residence with M. Ampere — His
love of science — Tendency to decouragenient — anxiety about the future
— Tour in Italy — Dante and Raphael, 47

CHAPTER VI.— 1833.

The young Catholics befriended by M. Bailly — His newspaper, the Tri-
bune Catlwlique — Opens his office as a lecture-room and debating-hall —
Removal to a spacious hall in the Place de I'Estrapade — Account of the
debates — Increase of the Society — Soirees at M. de Montalembert's, . 53

CHAPTER VII.— 1833,

Hostility to the young Catholics continues unabated — Professor Jouffroy
an exception — The enemy's taunt : " Show us your works ! " — Ozanam's
suggestion at this juncture — First practical meeting in Pere Bailly's of-
fice, and presided over by him — Formation of the Society of St. Vincent
de Paul — its work among the poor — Soeur Rosalie — Rules of the Society
— Ozanam's first proteges — Hesitation at first as to the admission of new
members — Rapid growth of the Society, as related by Ozanam twenty
years later — The title of Founder always repudiated by him — Brave
manifestation on the part of the Catholic students described by Oza-
nam in a letter to his mother — procession at Nanterre — God preparing a
powerful and brilliant champion, 59

CHAPTER VIII.— 1834.

Fall of M. de Lamennais — The Abbe Gerbet — M. de Montalembert — Anti-
Christian spirit manifested at the Sorbonne at this time — The preaching
of the Paris clergy — The Abbe Lacordaire — his first oratorical successes
at the College Stanislas — First idea of his "Conferences" due to Oza-
"nam — Proposal to Monseigneur de Quelen, Archbishop of Paris — La-
cordaire's consent obtained — Ozanam and others again visit the Arch-
bishop— Lamennais at the Archbishop's — The proposal divulged in the
Univers — The Archbishop's scheme to meet the wishes of the young
men — Lacordaire's Sunday addresses at the College Stanislas — His sub-
jects— Ozanam's admiration and regret 69

Contents. V

CHAPTER IX.— 1834-35.

PAGE

Ozanam's uncertainty as to his vocation — His repugnance to leadership —
Memorable soiree — Antagonism of the world — Political formula — Holi-
days spent at Lyons — his impression of the changes during his two years'
absence — Visit to the Chateau de St. Point to see Lamartine — The in-
terview described — Letters in reference to the poor and the Society of St.
Vincent de Paul — Charity and philanthrop)- — Return of old scruples
and anxieties — Illness of his mother — visit to Lyons — The cholera
averted from Lyons, 80

CHAPTER X.— 1835-36.

Attitude of. the clergy towards Lacordaire's Conferences — Hesitation of the
Archbishop — Lacordaire remonstrates — The Archbishop proposes a con-
dition of resuming the Conferences which Lacordaire could not accept —
Despair of Ozanam and his friends — The Abbe Liautard, founder of the
College Stanislas, writes a vigorous expostulation — Lacordaire visits
the Archbishop — Sudden re\-ulsion in the Archbishop's mind — appoint-
ment of Lacordaire to the pulpit of Notre Dame, and named Canon of
the Cathedral — Ozanam and Lacordaire, 91

CHAPTER XL— 1837.

Close of Ozanai-i's legal studies — Indecision as to his real vocation — Enters
on his duties as a barrister — Death of his father — Anecdote in reference
to his knowledge of Hebrew — Devotedness to his mother — The munici-
pality of Lyons petitions that Ozanam be appointed to a proposed Chair
of Commercial Law — His own feelings in regard to it — Antipathy to
the married state — Acquisition of the dignity of Doctor of Law — Visit
to La Grande Chartreuse — His ideal of a wife — Incompatibility felt by
him between the profession of the bar and the pursuit of literature —
Seeks to combat in others the depression experienced by himself — Remi-
niscences of Italian travel — The great social question, .... 99

CHAPTER XII.— 1838-39.

Degree of Doctor of Letters — Thesis on Dante — Failure of his mother's
health — his anxiety regarding the younger members of the family — The-
sis on Dante extended and published — Nomination as Professor of
Commercial Law at Lyons — Philosophical Professorship at Orleans
offered by M. Cousin, but declined — Cousin's announcement to him of
his nomination to the Municipal Chair — Growing importance of the
Society of St. Vincent de Paul — Opposition encountered by it — Impor-
tance attached by him to correspondence between the various Con-
ferences— The two hostile camps existing in society — The po\Ter of
friendship, 100

vi Contents.

CHAPTER Xni.— 1839.

PAGB

Failure of Ozanam's new position as Professor to set his mind at rest —
his mother — doubts as to his vocation — His views on marriage — This
period the most ag^itated of his life — M. Cousin — M. de Montalerfibert —
Lacordaire and the Order of St. Dominic — Conferences of St. Vincent
de Paul invited by Ozanam to meet Lacordaire at Lyons — Reply of
Ozanam to Lacordaire 's letter from Rome — symptoms of a monastic
vocation — Lacordaire's answer — Letter on the death of Madame Oza-
nam— Communion with his mother's spirit, 116

CHAPTER XIV.— 1840-41.

Ozanam's Cours de Droit — crowds attracted — Renewed perplexities about
his vocation — Sympathy with domestic joys — Matrimonial traps — Visit
to Paris — meeting svith old friends — Position of Catholics in France —
Renewed overtures from AL Cousin — Resolves to compete for the AgrS-
gation de litteratiire — the issue to be accepted as the final indication of
his destiny — The Abbe Noirot's advice as to marriage — Visit to M. Sou-
lacroix — Competitive examination in Paris — Unexpected triumph —
Offered the position of Assistant Professor of Foreign Literature in the
Sorbonne — Undertakes a short tour in Germany — Aix-la-Chapelle —
Colog^ne — Christian art — Legends of the Rhine — Asks the hand of
Mademoiselle Soulacroix, and is accepted — Offered the Chair of Foreign
Literature in the University of Lyons — Deliverance from the dilemma —
resolution to go to Paris — His marriage — letters connected with it — His
lofty idea of the duties and privileges of the married state — Tour through
Italy, Sicily, Naples, Rome — St. Peter's, wtO

CHAPTER XV.— 1842.

Ozanam's new post one beset with difficulties — His fitness for it, notwith-
standing—MM. Guizot, Villemain, and Cousin— M. de Montalembert —
Ozanam comes boldly out as a teacher identified with the Christian
faith — His eloquence— Gifts and difficulties as an orator— His manner
of lecturing — Power over the >oung, and strong sympathy with them —
Earnestness in his professorial duties — Lectures on the Holy Roman
Empire — Research for his work on Germany — Advice to his brother
Charles — His love of work, *47

CHAPTER XVI.— 1843-44.

Question of the freedom of the schools — Montalembert — The Cercle Catho-
lique—OzdSiZSCiS influence at the C^rc/^- speech on the literary duties
of Christians — Fierce attack by the Univers on a portion of the speech
— His prudence and far-seeing sagacity exemplified at this juncture-x.
Relations between Church and State the grand question at issue — Oza-
nam bravely seconded by M. Lenormant — Account of Lenormant's con-
version to Christianity — Tumult at the recommencement of his lectures

Contents vii

Stilled by Ozanam — Lenormant's Cours closed by Government — Oza-
nam, undaunted, continues the out-and-out Christian tone of his teach-
ing— His universal popularity — His tolerance towards error — Anecdote
illustrative of the charity which distinguished all his dealings with the
poor — His considerateness and deference in his service of the poor —
True character of almsgiving — His order in dispensing his charities, . 162

CHAPTER XVII.— 1844-45.

O^anam's household in Paris — Gui-gui — Important event for Ozanam — M.
Fauriel's death — Nominated Professor for Ufe — Letters on this subject to
Ampere and Foisset — Regret of the pupils of the College Stanislas at
fosing him — their letter to Ozanam — His conscientiousness as an ex-
aminer— Nomination of his father-in-law, M. Soulacroix, as Chef de
Division in the Ministry of Public Instruction — Birth of his child — Joys
and duties of fatherhood — Summer residence at Nogent — His History
0/ Christian Civilization amongst the Germans^ i8c

CHAPTER XVIIL— 1846.

Health giving way, but work uninterrupted — Lectures to working-men —
The laborer rehabilitated by Christianity — The law of labor universal —
Labor in the Church — Labor the law of regeneration — Examinations for
the Baccalaureat — Ozanam attacked by a malignant fever — Sent on a
literary mission to Italy, 188

CHAPTER XIX.— 1846-47.

Winter in Rome — Two volumes the result of his present journey — Pius
IX. at the Church of St. Apollinarius — Ozanam's enthusiasm for the
Pope — Easter Sunday at St. Peter's — Enthusiasm of the Romans — Por-
trait of Pius IX. — Private audience with the Pope — Little Marie — Re-
searches in the library at the Abbey of Monte Cassino — National banquet
in Rome — Torchlight procession to the Quirinal — Dreaming in the star-
light— Ozanam's idea of Democracy — Real and ideal Republic — Policy
of Pius IX. — Principle of religion and liberty — Ozanam's hopeful view
of the Pope's reforms — The amount of liberty enjoyed without prejudice
to order, the measure of a nation's moral strength — Tour homewards —
Siena, Bologna, Padua, Assisi, Venice — Attractions of Venice — Home
with restored health — through Switzerland and Belgium, . . . 193

CHAPTER XX.— 1847.

Ozanam's work, Les Poetes Franciscains, the fruit of this journey to Italy
— St. Gregory and St. Ambrose — St. Francis of Assisi — " My Ladye
Poverty" — "Our brother, my lord the Sun" — Tomb of St. Francis —
Cimabue, Giotto — Frere Pacifique, St. Bonaventure — Jacopone di Todi,
the herald of Dante — Little Flowers of St. Francis aio

viii Contents.

CHAPTER XXL— 1848.

PAGE

Elaborate programme of Ozanam's great work — Revolution of February
— Ozanam's manner of judging politics — Attacked by the press — the
camp of monarchs — Louis Quatorze — " Passons aux Barbares ! " — Oza-
nam's estimate of the revolution — Declines becoming a candidate for
election to the Assemblee Nationale — He enters the lists as a journalist, 223

CHAPTER XXII. — 1848-49.

The Avettir — Retrospect of Catholic journalism — Abbe Migne and the
Univers — Abbe Gerbet — The Ere Nouvelle started by Ozanam and the
Pere Lacordaire — Election of Lacordaire to the National Assembly —
Ozanam's zeal in propagating Christian democratic principles — Extracts
from the Ere Nouvelle — Ozanam's courage in this national crisis — On
duty as a National Guard — The Archbishop of Paris, at the request of
Ozanam, M. Bailly, and M. Cornudet, goes forth as peace-maker — The
Archbishop killed at the barricades — Ozanam's disappointment at the
results of the Revolution — His extraordinary activity at this time — State
of Paris after the Revolution — Picture of misery in the Faubourgs — Oza-
nam's crusade against the gospel of despair — Radical causes of the evil
sought to be discovered — Apathy of the Government — The Ere Nou-
velle''s career closed — Letter to a Freethinker — A new paper started —
the Moniieur Reitgieux — Ozanam promises occasional assistance — Con-
troversy with the Univers — Denounced as a deserter — Bears witness to
himself, 231

CHAPTER XXIIL— 1850-51.

Ozanam's health again a cause of serious alarm — Tour in Brittany — the
Bretons — the pardon of St. Anne d'Auray — Legends of Brittany — The
interests of the poor — Morlaix — Hospitality — political feeling — Comic
incidents — Burlesque poem addressed to M. Ampere — Political decom-
position of society — State proselytism — Pere Lacordaire — Countr>' resi-
dence at Sceaux, near Paris — Friendship with Ampere — Faithful and
tender letter to him, and the response it met with — Visit to London —
the Crystal Palace — The true greatness of London — Its wealth and its
pauperism — St. Paul's — Incident connected with his first visit to West-
minster Abbey — Catholicism in England — Class feeling — Visit to Ox-
ford— Return to Sceaux — Letter to Ampere — pleasant prospects, . . 255

CHAPTER XXIV.— 1852.

Ozanam again dangerously ill — Letter to an old schoolfellow whose faith
had been shipwrecked in the study of profane science — Leaves from his
own experience — Conquests of the Gospel — Last appearance at the Sor-
bonne — Removal to Eaux-Bonnes for the benefit of the waters — Founds
a Conference there — Intercourse with the Abbe Perreyve — Leaves Eajux-

Contents ix

Bonnes for Biarritz — Tour in the Pyrenees— Pilgrimage to Betharram, a r
shrine of the fifteenth century — Parting with Perreyve — Proposed as a
member for the Instifut — Stolen glimpse of Spain — A few days at Bur-
gos— Souvenir of this rapid excursion : A Pilgrimage to the Land of
the O'rf— Burgos under three separate aspects — I'arewell to Spain —
poetic invocation to Notre i:)ame de Burgos — Pilgrimage to Notre
Dame de Buglosse— St. Vincent's oak-tree— The old priest at Buglosse,
and his advice — Threatening symptoms reappear, 272

CHAPTER XXV.

Ozanam's early-formed plan never lost sight of throughout his literary and
professional career— His reluctance to allow his lectures at the Sorbonne
to be reported at last overcome— success of the experiment— The post-
humous volumes on the Civilisation au Cinquihne Si'ecle — His literary
testament, being the preface to that wc-k- The Middle Ages— Gibbon's
thesis— How viewed by Ozanam— Good Friday, a.d. 1300— Paganism of
the Roman Empire— Slavery— The poor— Fall of the Empire— St.
Augustine— Change effected by Christianity on the social position of
woman — The Latin tongue saved by Christianity — the Vulgate — The
bridge between antiquity and barbarism bridged over by Ozanam — Oza-
nam's Civilization 0/ the Fifth Century crowned at the Academie Fran-
ijaise — Programme of the course of his whole work — Les Etudes Ger-
maniqties — Radical unity of the Indo-European peoples — Conflict be-
tween the Germans and the Romans — The mission of the Franks —
Charlemagne — The mission of the Celtic race — Ireland : St. Columba,
St. Brendan, St. Patrick — Lacordaire on Ozanam's power of oratory
and erudition — Letter from Count de Montalembert to Madame Oza-
nam— Dante et la Philosophie Catholique ati treizieme siicle — The dif-
ferent schools of Dantesque commentators — Ozanam's chief aim in his
work on Dante — Philosophy of the Middle Ages — Secret of Dante's im-
mortality— Ozanam's treatment of Beatrice — Multiform character of
Dante's poem — Dante and Beatrice — Turning-points in Dante's life —
Earlier works — The Divina Com7nedia — Dante claimed by Ozanam as
the prophet of democracy and of the revolutions of modern society —
Exonerated from complicity in modem excesses — The question of Dante's
orthodoxy — His invectives against the Roman court and certain Popes
— Summoned before the Inquisition — Homer and Dante — Dante's phil-
osophy ever the obedient handmaiden of theology — Ozanam's work and
fts characteristics, . . . • 288

CHAPTER XXVI.— 1853.

Threshold of the closing scene — Journey to Italy — his admiration of the
wortcs of God — Cathedral of Pisa — The library — Pleasure in his friends
— Lenormant — Ampere — Multiplication of Conferences of the Society of
St. Vincent de Paul in Italy — Guido Pajagi — Pisa and Genoa — aspect of

: Contents.

FAGB

the churches — Protestant efforts — Fourierism and Socialism — Incident
in connection with the foundation of Conferences in Tuscany — Dowager
Grand-Duchess — His speech at the opening seance — Effect produced by
its circulation — State of health at this time — His daily thanksgivings for
particular mercies — " Little kindnesses " received from God — Letter to
Ampere — His delight in prayer and meditation on Divine things, and in
the reading of the Scriptures — Thoughts written on his last birthday —
The Marquis de Salvo — Madame Recamier — ^Jewish convert to Chris-
tianity— Improvement of health — old passion for work — Visit to Siena
with a view to establish a Conference — Removal to Antignano — Letter
to Padre Pendola, earnestly pleading with him to take the matter in
hand — His success — two Conferences founded — Sympathy with do-
mestic joys — Review of the Po'etes Franciscains in the Revue des Deux
Mondes — His candidature for the Institut abandoned — His "Odyssey"
— increasing weakness — Flattering tokens received from the highest per-
sonages during his stay in Tuscany — Visitors : the Ferruccis — brothers
of St. Vincent de Paul — Goes to hear Mass — homage of the villagers —
The old Cure of Antignano — Codicil to his will — Letter of the Abbe
Perreyve — Last days at Antignano — Removal to Marseilles — The clos-
ing scene 3^9

PREFACE.

The following passages from a Review of the first edition of
this Biography of Frederic Ozanam is the best preface I can
give, at the request of the writer, to the second edition of this
deeply interesting narrative.

HENRY EDWARD,

Ai*g- 15. 1878. Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster.

P6re Gratry has said somewhere in his writings that one dif-
ference between the society of the Middle Ages and of these lat-
ter centuries consists in this, " Society then was Catholic, and
sustained men above themselves, but now Society is Catholic no
longer, and drags men downwards with itself." The truth of this
is to be seen perhaps more clearly in France and in this century
than in any other period or country. The first French Revolution
decatholicized the society of France. Its Catholicism has sur-
vived in individuals, and yet they have, with exceptions indeed,
shown the depressing and distorting power of the society into
which they were born, and by which they were nurtured. What
the Germans call the " Time-Spirit " is powerful everywhere, but
it has shown its subtlety and its supremacy nowhere more visibly
than in the noble and chivalrous race of Catholics who have so
powerfully urged onward the reaction towards faith in France
since the year 1830.

M. de Broglie has said that the principles of 1789 were formu-
lated and published not only as a charter for France but as a gos-
pel for mankind. M. Thiers said to a bishop on his way to the
Council, " Do not attack the principles of 1789; whoso touches
them touches the marrow of Frenchmen." They have penetrated
into the intelligence and created a public opinion which affects
even those who resist them. To this fact we may ascribe two
phenomena strange and sad in the Catholic action of France
for the last forty years ; namely, that those who were labor-

xi

xii Preface.

ing in the Catholic reaction to restore faith, piety, and fidelity
to the Holy See, were divided, and opposed to each other, and
that one band of men for whose devotion, piety, intellectual ele-
vation, and chivalrous fidelity to the Catholic Church, every
Catholic must have admiration, should have been so perceptibly,
though, we believe, unconsciously, affected by the Time-Spirit
created by the principles of 1789.

Frederic Ozanam was one of the most brilliant of the brilliant
band of Catholic writers in whom this can be traced. We are,
therefore, desirous of making unmistakably clear our judgment
on these points before we go on to express our profound admira-
tion and aflfectionate sympathy with him and many of those who
were associated with him in this noble conflict for the Catholic
Faith against the infidel politics and Voltairean society of Paris
and of France.

The youth of France were the offspring of the infidel Univer-
sity of the First Napoleon. Neither under the Restoration nor
under the reign of Louis Philippe was its destructive influence
counteracted. Society was either infidel and indifferent, or Vol-
tairean— that is, infidel and scoffing. Such a society pulled down
all its members ; and into such a society Frederic Ozanam was
born. It might be divided into three classes. First came the
non-Catholics, who believed nothing ; secondly, the Catholics
who gave splendid examples of a perfect fidelity to the Church ;
and, thirdly, those who may be called Catholics yV/jr/a modum-j
that is to say, they were in some particulars and details affected by
the Time-Spirit of their age and country. Nevertheless, among
these were some of the noblest and most chivalrous sons of the
Church, and some also of the most ardent and lovrng Christians
and true soldiers of Jesus Christ. It seems to us that we ought
to render justice to all such men, and we feel that we can do so
without incurring a suspicion of our being " liberal Caiholics."
We have had our baptismus opprobriorum as Ultramontanes, and
even as ultra-Catholic and ultra-ultramontane. Our chief mission
has been to learn of the living voice of the Vicarof Jesus Christ, and
to repeat his utterances with a perfect fidelity. We therefore claim
to ourselves the freedom of speaking generously of those who,
in our judgment, may not in some things have followed the guid-
ance of the Holy See, for we have bouglit that freedom with the
great price of no little odium, and no sparing censure for our
extreme ultramontanism.

It seems to us to be the duty of justice, not to speak of charity.

Preface. xiii

that while we remain inHexible in our own altitude, we should en-
deavor, as far as possible, to appreciate at its full all that is high,
noble, truthful, and Catholic in them ; and while we note the
point in which we believe them to have come short, to render to
their lives, characters, and memories the fullest recollection of
what they were. We say iheir memories, because of those of
whom wc have to speak hardl)' one survives.

Between the years 1830 and 1850 there arose in France a group
of men whose lives have left an indelible mark upon their country.
The period of De Maistre and Chateaubriand was followed by
that of Lamennais, De Bonald, De Salignis, Gerbet, Lacordaire,
Montalembert, Ozanam, Rio, Combalot, Cochin, and in its later
time, Gratry ; and, we must add, as a youthful disciple called
away before he had inscribed his name by toil, Henry Perreyve.

While conscious of divergencies and deviations in certain
things, it was impossible not to see and to love the noble charac-
ter of these men. Endowed with great natural gifts, and with
wide and various cultivation, there was one thing in common with
them all — a great mental beauty, and a great breadth of heart.
No one can have read the writings of Gerbet, Rio, Ozanam,
Montalembert, and Gratry, nobody can have known Henry Per-
reyve, without seeing and feeling the singular beauty of their in-
telligence, and the generous impulses of their character.

We have no fear in rendering this just and affectionate tribute to
their memory; and if in anything we have at times strongly op-
posed their way of judging and speaking, we never forgot, and
never shall cease to declare, that they were noble sons of France,
which had marked them for its own with some of the best tokens
of its less stable age. There is also another truth to be born in
mind. If we were to try the language of some of the Antenicene
Fathers by the terminology fixed by the Council of Nicaea, we
should find matter for criticism. In like manner if we were to
try the writings of some of the noblest and most fervent de-
fenders of the Catholic Faith and of the Holy See in France by
the later tests of the Syllabus and of the Vatican Council, we
should commit an injustice. At that period we might have been
as they were, without an exact terminology, and with questions
as yet undecided.

Ozanam's studies were completed by the age of twenty-two ;
and in eighteen years he accomplished all that he has left behind
of finished writings, and all that he wrought into the hearts and
lives of the youth of France in the widespread revival of Faith,

xiv Preface.

which is expanding to this day. They were eighteen years of
great intellectual and spiritual intensity. One word spoken by
a mind raised to the pitch of its powers does more than a thou-
sand scattered from an unimpassioned mind. We have rarely
seen clearer evidence of mental intensity than in Frederic Oza-
nam. It may be well believed that it was not only the energy of
a mind inflamed with the love of God, but that the keen energy of
a nervous system which daily consumed itself added to the inten-
sity of the will. There can be no doubt that he accomplished the
vow of his youth by spending and being spent to the last beat of
his pulse for " the Truth which had given him peace."

Although Ozanam chose literature for his calling in life, and
although he refused again and again the proposal to enter the
Legislature, or to be called a politician, and that, too, with a de-
clared purpose of working out social reforms in distinction from
political, nevertheless he avowed himself explicitly to be a repub-
lican. This we have no doubt has caused him to incur the cen-
sure of Legitimists, Roj-alists, Imperialists, and even to lose the
perfect confidence of loyal Catholics, who associate order and
obedience with monarchy,, and, if not anarchy, at least instability
of both public and private morals with republicanism. This was
especially true in France, where the name of Republic and the
reality were identified with 1793 and the Phrygian cap of re-
volution. We shall not be suspected of republicanism, or want
of loyalty to the great English monarchy of a thousand years,
founded broad and deep in the natural order of prudence and
justice by our Catholic forefathers, and subsisting to this day, the
only commonwealth against which revolutions have broken them-
selves in vain, — we say we shall not be suspected of republican-
ism, or of any uncatholic tendency in politics, if we clear Frede-
ric Ozanam also from any such suspicion.

We have heard it said that no republican can be a good Catho-
lic. We would commend this dictum to the conscience of Cardi-
nal McCloskey and to the pastors and people of the Catholic
Church of the United States ; or, to come nearer home, we would
commend it to the deliberation of Mgr. Mermillod, who %vould,
we imagine, distinguish between the Helvetian republic and the
gang of infidels and persecutors who now tyrannize over Geneva.
But we may even go further, and remind those who censure Oza-
nara's politics, of the republics of Venice, Florence, Pisa, and
Genoa, of the Catholic chivalry which issued from them, and of
the Saints who sprung from them.

Preface. xv

Now, it was precisely the mediaeval Christian and Catholic re-
public which fascinated and filled Ozanam's mind. In it he saw
the check and balance which would have saved France from the
excesses of its later kings, and, therefore, from the sanguinary
and anarchical reaction called the Revolution. His indignant
lamentations over the state of the people of Paris ; his burning
zeal for the poor, whose degradation in poverty, ignorance, and
depravity he, as a Brother of St. Vincent de Paul, saw with his
own eyes, and relieved with his own hands — all this made him
pra)' and toil for a Christian equality of brotherhood such as he
had read of in the commonwealth of Israel. Perhaps the instinct
of a theocratic commonwealth ran in the blood of a Hozannam
by direct inheritance.

But we can find for Ozanam another plea. In the years when
he was entering into the studies of his manhood there appeared
in France a book which has, more than almost any other, mould-
ed and directed the political thought of the nineteenth century ;
we mean De Tocqueville's "Democracy in America."* We
shall better convey our own meaning by simply letting De Tocque-
ville express his. In his Introduction to his work he writes as
follows :

" The more I studied American society, the more I perceived that the equality
of conditions is the fundamental fact from which all others seem to be derived, and
the central point at which all my observations constantly terminated. I then
turned my thoughts to our own hemisphere, where I imagined that I discerned
something analogous to the spectacle which the New World presented to me. I
observed that the equality of conditions is daily progressing towards those extreme
limits which it seems to have reached in the United States ; and that the demo-
cracy which governs the American communities appears to be rapidly rising into
power in Europe." (P. 13.)

He ascribes this equality chiefly to the action of the Catholic
Church :

" Soon (he says) the political power of the clerg>' was founded, and began to
exert itself ; the clergy opened its ranks to all classes — to the poor and to the rich,
the villain and the lord ; equality penetrated into the government through the
Church, and the being who, as a serf, must have vegetated in perpetual bondage,
took his place as a priest in the midst of nobles, and not unfrequently above the
heads of icings." (P. 15.)

After saying that ever}- fifty years has levelled France more and
more nearly after the model of America, he says :
" Nor is this phenomenon at all peculiar to France. Whithersoever we turn o"ur

*" Democracy in America" -. Reeve's translation. London: 1865.

xvi Preface.

eyes, we shall witness the same continual revolution throughout the whole of
Christendom. The various occurrences of national existence have everywhere
turned to the advantage.of democracy. All men have aided it by their exertions :
those who have intentionally labored in its cause, and those who have served it un-
wittingly ; those who have fought for it, and those who have declared themselves
its opponents — have all been driven along in the same track, have all labored to
one end, some ignorantly and some unwillingly ; all have been blind instruments
in the hands of God. The gradual development of the equality of conditions s
therefore a providential fact, and it possesses all the characteristics of a Divine
decree : it is universal, it is durable, it constantly eludes all human interferenca
and all events as well as all men contribute to its progress." (Pp. 19, 20.)

" The whole book which is here offered to the public has been written under the
impression of a kind of religious dread produced on the author's mind by the con-
templation of so irresistible a revolution, which has advanced for centuries in spite
of such amazing obstacles, and which is still proceeding in the midst of the rums it
has made." (P. 21.)

" The Christian nations of our age seem to me to present a most alarming spec-
tacle ; the impulse which is bearing them along is so strong that it cannot be
stopped, but it is not yet so rapid that it cannot be guided : their fate is in their
hands ; yet a little while and it may be so no longer. The first duty which is at
this time imposed upon those who direct our affairs is to educate the democracy :
to warm its faith, if that be possible ; to purify its morals ; to direct its energies ;
to substitute a knowledge of business for its inexperience, and an acquaintance
with its true interests for its blind propensities ; to adapt its government to time
and place, and to modify it in compliance with the occurrences and the actors of
the age. A new science of politics is indispensable to a new world." (P. 22.)

" Zealous Christians may be found amongst us, whose minds are nurtured in the
love and knowledge of a future life, and who readily espouse the cause of human
liberty, as the source of all moral greatness. Christianity, which has declared that
all men are equal in the sight of God, will not refuse to acknowledge that all citi-
zens are equal in the sight of the law. But, by a singular concourse of events, re-
ligion is entangled in those institutions which democracy assails, and it is not un'
frequently brought to reject the equality it loves, and to curse that cause of liberty
as a foe, which it might hallow by its alliance." (Pp. 31, 32.)

He then sums up the saddest feature of our times — the unna-
tural and fratricidal conflicts of those who have common interests,
and are combining for the same ends. It is as if Ate had come
between men.

" The religionists are the enemies of liberty, and the friends of liberty attack re-
ligion ; the high-minded and the noble advocate subjection, and the meanest and
most ser\'ile minds preach independence; honest and enlightened citizens are op-
posed to all progress, whilst men without patriotism and without principles are the
apostles of civilization and of intelligence." (Pp. 33, 34.)

We cannot leave De Tocqueville's name without adding that
he was born of a fervent Catholic Breton family ; that, like too
many Frenchmen, he became practically indifTerent ; but that he
ended his davs in Cannes with the pastoral care of the cure and
the watchful service of a Sister of Charity.

Preface. xvii

Now, we can hardly believe that Ozanam had not become fa-
miliar with De Tocqueville's thesis, and we might venture to as-
sert with De Tocqueville's writings. If so, we have the key to
the passages which we now add. in which Ozanam pours out his
whole political creed.

His biographer, who evidently has studied all his works, has
summed up his mind as follows :

" The philosophy of history, as he interpreted it, had led him to believe that
there is no real meaning or character in the movement of human society unless
through all its changes and convulsions we can discern a steady and continual pro-
gress through Christianity to the dignity of freedom. This condition of freedom,
which he held as essential to the welfare and happiness of communities, he consid-
ered equally indispensable to the Church. He was consequently intolerant of the
least bondage for her, and impatient that a Christian people should tolerate it,
when at the same time they were, perhaps, fighting manfully for the emancipation
of their country. If the Church were free, free in the fullest sense of the word —
free to guide, to rule, and to teach mankind— then all legitimate freedom would
follow. •• (Pp. 283.)

" ' A struggle is preparing,' he says, ' between the classes, and it threatens to be
terrible ; let us precipitate ourselves between these hostile ranks so as to deaden
the shock, if we cannot prevent it.' In 1836 he wrote to his friend Lallier : ' The
question which agitates the world to-day is not a question of political fortns, but
a social question ; if it be the struggle of those who have nothing, with those who
have too much ; if it be the violent shock of opulence and poverty which is mak-
ing the ground tremble under our feet, our duty, as Christians, is to throw our-
selves between these irreconcilable enemies, and to induce one side to give, in
order to fulfil the law, and the other to receive, as a benefit ; to make one side
cease to exact, and the other to refuse ; to render equality as general as it is possi-
ble amongst men ; to make voluntary community of possession to replace taxation
and forced loans ; to make charity accomplish what justice and law alone can never
do.' He adhered to this political creed all his life. Twelve years later, on the eve
of the ' violent shock ' which his far-seeing sagacity foretold, he repeats, as in his
student days, ' It is a social question ; do away with misery. Christianize the peo-
ple, and you will make an end of revolutions.' " (Pp. 304.)

" The first duty of Christians, now, is not to be frightened ; and the second is
not to frighten others ; but, on the contrary, to reassure the timorous, and to
make them understand that the present crisis is like a storm that cannot last."
(P. 318.)

" Here we are in this great and opulent metropolis for the last seven weeks with-
out a government or a regular police, and yet we hear of no more murders, robber-
ies, or other misdemeanors than before. Don't believe those evil-minded persons
who go about spreading absurd stories ; there is not a word of truth in them, and
nothing is more contrary to the dispositions of the population of Paris, who on
every occasion seek to show respect to religion and sympathy to the clergy. My
friend, the Abbe Cherruel, who has blessed thirteen trees of liberty, has been quite
affected by the proofs of faith which he found amidst this people, where, since
1815, the priest has been taught to see only enemies of God and of the Church.
Occupy yourself as much with servants as with masters, with workmen as much as
with employers. This is henceforth the only means of salvation for the Church of

xviii Preface.

France. The cur6s must set aside their pious parish congregations, little flocks of
good sheep in the midst of an enormous population to whom the parish priest is a
stranger. He must henceforth occupy himself, not only with the indigent, but
with that immense class of poor who do not ask for alms, but who are, neverthe-
less, attracted by special preaching, by charitable associations, by the affection
that is shown to them, and which teaches them more than we think. Now, more
than ever, we ought to meditate on a beautiful passage in the 2d chapter of the
Epistle of St. James, which seems as if it had been written expressly for these
times." (Pp. 319.)

Once more, in a passage which we reluctantly abridge, he
brings out the profound conviction of his mind that the infidel
revolution is the ranting and malaria of a land where the " salt
has lost its savor " :

" It is within, not without, that we must seek for the sources of men's happiness
and its principal enemies," he declares ; " and we shall have done nothing, abso-
lutely nothing, so long as we have not carried light and reform into those internal
disorders which time does not right, which are more incurable than diseases, which
Jast longer than the chomage^ and go on multiplying pauperism long after the
grass of the graveyard has effaced the last traces of civil war. God did not
make the poor ; He sends no human creatures into the chances of this world with-
out providing them with those two sources of riches, which are the fountain of
all others— intelligence and will. . . . Why should we hide from the people
what they know, and flatter them like bad kings? It is human liberty that makes
the poor; it is that which dries up those two primitive fountains of wealth, by al-
lowing intelligence to be quenched in ignorance, and will to be weakened by mis-
conduct. The working-men know it better than we do. . . . God forbid that
we should calumniate the poor whom the Gospel blesses, or render the suffering
classes responsible for their misery ; thus pandering to the hardness of those bad
hearts that fancy themselves exonerated from helping the poor man when they
have proved his wrong-doing. . . But while we have put crushing taxes on

salt, meat, and all necessaries of life, we have not yet discovered in the arsenal of
our fiscal laws the secret of arresting the multiplication of distilleries, of raising the
price of alcoholic liquors, of restricting the sale of those detestable, adulterated,
poisonous drinks that cause more sickness than all the rigors of the seasons, and
make more criminals than all the injustice of men combined. What reforms have
you introduced into the public amusements of this Parisian population, so infatu-
ated about pleasure, so ready to let itself be led to the ends of the earth, not with
bread, as it has been said, but with amusement? Last winter the Prefecture of
Police delivered _/£>«>- thousand licenses for night balls. The State puts no limit
to those unhealthy diversions, which the good sense of our fathers contracted within
the six weeks of the Carnival. Every year it authorizes the opening of a new thea-
tre in some wretched haunt of the Faubourgs, where the sons and daughters of the
people are fed nightly upon the scum of a literature whose cynicism would revolt
the chastity of the opera pit. And when, for six months of the year, the youth of
the working classes have spent their evenings and their nights in these horrible
dens, where their health runs as much danger as their morals, you are surprised to
see them turn out miserable puny creatures, incapable of supplying the military
contingent, but supplying innumerable recruits every year to the prisons and the
hospitals ! Let us not imagine we have done our duty by the people when we have
taught them to read, and write, and count. . . . When it was a question of

Preface. xix

crushing out the last embers of the insurrection, there was no need of delays and
formalities to pitch twenty camps in the Boulevards of Paris, and up to the very
doors of the Hotel de Ville ; and here we are, after four months, when in the 12th
arrondissement alone there are 4,000 children without shelter — here we are still
struggling amidst adjournments, motions, and debates, fighting to overcome I
know not what scruples of committees, boards, administrations, and the rest of it,
who are terrified that the State will be ruined and overturned if the education of
the young ouvriers is confided to sisters and brothers, to teachers capable, that is,
of teaching them something more than how to spell out the syllables of the news-
paper, and to scrawl the ordre de jour ai the barricades on the walls with a piece
of coal." (Pp. 334-335.)

" ' The poor devils,' he said, ' who are beguiled to the barricades, but who are
Christians at heart, are ready to melt at a word of kindness.' " (P. 277.)

In all this we see a profound faith in the words of the Holy
Scriptures. " Sanabiles fecit Deus nationes super terras." He
believed the nations to be sick because their faith had almost given
way under the spiritual, moral, and physical conditions of their
life. But he profoundly believed in the healing power of God
through the Church and the ever-renewing health of the genera-
tions of man. France, it is said, had once two-and-twenty thou-
sand leprosy hospitals, but they have disappeared together with
the leprosy which called them into existence. So he believed
that the social evils of France were to be healed by the power of
Christianity upon the heart of man. " Christianize the masses";
this was his gospel and his political creed — a creed which has a
higher sanction from St. Gregory the Great to Pius the Ninth.

And the mention of this august name reminds us that we can-
not better close this hearty tribute to a beautiful mind and a noble
life than by the words in which Ozanam professed his filial
and loving obedience to the Vicar of Jesus Christ. The winter
of 1846-1847 Ozanam passed in Rome. It was at the beginning
of the Pontificate of Pius IX. On Easter Sunday he wrote thus:

" This is the moment to speak to you of the Papacy, now that I have just as-
sisted at its most solemn pageants, and am still under the spell of the emotion
called up by that most thrilling spectacle which is to be seen on earth, the Papal
Mass and the benediction of the Urbi et orbi." (P. 265.)

Ozanam was received by the Holy Father with the most fatherly
aflfection, and it was returned by a filial love which inspired his
whole soul with the loyalty of a chivalrous Catholic.

At a public meeting, on his return from Rome, he said:

" I believe the future has serious troubles in store for Pius IX. I believe it for
his greater glory. God does not raise up such men for ordinary difficulties. If this
gp-eat Pontiff had only to cope with the over-enthusiasm, the eagerness of his peo-
ple— a thing that so few prinres have to complain of — his mission would be an easy

XX Preface.

one ; it would fill too small a place in history ; his baric would glide over tranquil
waters. We must look out for the tempest. But let us not fear, like the disciples
of little faith ; Christ is in the boat, and He is not sleeping ; never has He been
more wakeful than in these present days." (P. 280.)

Such was Frederic Ozanam, a pure and noble soul, on fire with
charity to all men, especially to the poor ; consumed by zeal in
the service of truth ; pious, with a filial tenderness ; exemplary
in every path of life ; more eloquent in the supernatural beauty
of his thoughts than in the loving words which fell from his lips;
more illuminated with the ardor of Christian faith than with the
manifold lights of literary cultivation : such a man bore in him a
Catholic heart full of all instinctive loj'alty, as ready to give his
life for a jot or tittle of the faith, or for a definition of the Divine
authority of the Church, as he was to counsel the Archbishop of
Paris to tread in the steps of the good Shepherd, and to lay down
his life for his sheep. May God raise up on every side laymen
like Frederic Ozanam !

H. E.. C. A,

FREDERIC OZANAM.

CHAPTER I.
1813-1831.

The Ozanams would seem to be one of those races where
virtue and science are an entailed inheritance, descending
like heirlooms from one generation to another. For more
than three centuries every generation produced some dis-
tinguished man of science, and invariably counted one, fre-
quently several, members in the service of the sanctuary.
There is still preserved amongst the family treasures a MS.
Office of Our Lady, in Gothic characters, and illuminated
with delicate skill, by Elizabeth Ozanam, a nun of the Ursu-
line convent in the fifteenth century. In the last pages of
the book the genealogy of the elder branch of the Ozanams
is recorded, each generation inscribing its names and dates
individually.

Not satisfied, however, with this noble family tree, the
Ozanams trace back its roots to immemorial tradition. In
the first page * of the family records we read that one Jere-
miah Hozannam,f a praetor in the 38th Roman Legion, came
over to Gaul with Julius Caesar, after the conquest of Segu-
via, — a country situated between the Jura and the Alps, —
and received as his share of the conquered territory a can-

• If this fabulous genealogy were claimed by any but a Jewish family, we should feel bound
to dismiss it forthwith as beneath the serious notice of a biographer. Without, however, at-
tributing to the story more than a legendary importance, it is too picturesque to be omitted.

t Hozannam is the plural of Hozanna, according to the Hebrew custom of writing family
names in that number.

a Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

ton called Bellignum, lying north of Lyons, and known later
as the village of Boulignieux. Jeremiah reclaimed this
waste land, which was covered with woods and swamps,
and founded there a little Jewish colony. He died in the
year 43 before Christ, the same year that Csesar was assas-
sinated. He had many children, but the eldest is the only
one whose genealogy has come down to us. He starts the
long ancestral line in which Jacob, Ishmael, Elias, Abimelech,
Jehoshaphat, Shem, etc. etc., pass on like a procession of wit-
nesses vindicating the pure Jewish origin of the race. The
march is uninterrupted until the beginning of the seventh cen-
tury, when St. Didier, placing the cross in its way, stops it.
The saint, having denounced Queen Brunhaut's wicked man-
ner of life, was pursued by that sanguinary princess, and fled
for security to a forest near Boulignieux, where Samuel Ho-
zannam, the then chief of the tribe, sheltered him with native
hospitality. St. Didier repaid it by baptizing hirh and his
people in the true faith, and henceforth we see Matthias,
John, Peter, and other Christian names intermingling more
and more with the old Hebrew ones. The saint was seized
at last by the emissaries of Brunhaut, and strangled on the
banks of a little stream called the Renora, where, in course of
time, a village arose, and was called St. Didier de Renom.

Benedict, grandfather of the subject of this memoir, was
the first to suppress one n and the initial H in the family
name, which from this time forth we see written " Ozanam."
Benedict was nephew of Jacques Ozanam, the famous ma-
thematician, whose panegyric was written by Fontenelle,
and whose quaint saying, significant enough of his times,
has been so often quoted by his contemporaries : " It is the
business of the doctors of the Sorbonne to dispute, that of the
pope to dogmatize, and of mathematicians to go to heaven by
the perpendicular."

Such is the story of the remoter ancestors of Frederic.
Antoine, his father, when a very young man, was forced, by
the law of conscription, to serve in the army for five years.

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam . 3

He entered a hussar regiment, and made the Italian campaign
under Napoleon, then only a g&neral, and had his share in
the glories of Lodi, Areola, Pavia, Rivoli, etc. He received
five wounds on one field of battle ; in spite of this, and dis-
armed, he captured the Neapolitan general, Prince de Catto-
lica, and led him prisoner to Bologna, a feat which establish-
ed his reputation for valor and soldiership.

When the wars of the Republic were over, Antoine, un-
willing to serve under the Empire, returned to his native
town, Lyons, and soon after married Mademoiselle Nantas,
the daughter of a wealthy merchant of that city. He de-
voted himself to commercial pursuits, and so successfully
that in a few years he was in possession of a handsome for-
tune. He then came to reside in Paris, where he lived very
happily, until one day he gave his signature to a near relative
who was in pecuniary difficulties. The kind but imprudent
act resulted in his complete ruin. Everything was lost ;
even his furniture was sold ofif. The Emperor heard of it,
and sent him at once a brevet of captain in his own guards,
which he was just then raising, accompanied by a very flat-
tering message to " the brilliant officer whose valor had
made a lively impression on him." But Ozanam declined
the offer; he could not forgive Bonaparte for having made
a stepping-stone of the Republic to an Empire, and preferred
to face the world, beggared as he was, in independence.
His indomitable gayety and firmness of character enabled
him to meet poverty with the same intrepidity with which
he had faced death at the cannon's mouth. He left his wife
and young children in Paris, and set out for Italy, where he
had made some friends during his military stay, and where
he hoped to turn his French education to better profit than in
his own countT}'. He met with great sympathy, and secured a
sufficient number of lessons at Milan to enable him to send
for his family and settle down there as a professor. Madame
Ozanam and her children were accompanied by a faithful
servant, who went by the name of Gui-gui amongst the chiJ

4 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

dren — a wonderful t3p of the old French servant that one
hears of in records of former generations, but seldom, if in-
deed ever, meets with in the present one, Gui-gui shared
her master's poverty and worked her fingers to the bone to
add her mite to the common store in those first days of sud-
den distress.

M. Ozanam, while working hard at his 'Messons," had
begun to study medicine, and, thanks to his indefatigab e
industry, and to that inherited instinct of science which
seemed the birthriglit of his name, he was able, at the end
of two years, to pass his examinations with brilliant success,
and very soon acquired a fine practice. He devoted a
large share of his time to the poor, but his disinterested
kindness showed itself more especially to the sick soldiers of
the garrison. A terrible epidemic broke out at Milan, and
raged with peculiar fury amongst the troops ; the two medi-
cal men attached to the military hospital caught the fever
and died. Dr. Ozanam volunteered to replace them, and, tak-
ing up his abode in the hospital, he remained there till the end
of the pestilence, with the sole unaided charge of several
hundred invalids.

It was during this memorable year, 1813, that his son
Frederic was born, on the 13th of April.

The entrance of the Austrians into Milan decided Dr.
Ozanam to leave that city, it being repugnant to him to re-
main under a rule that was no longer French. lie returned
once more to Lyons, where the fame of his medical skill had
already travelled, so as to secure him soon after his arrival
a sufficiently large practice. But although his practice in-
creased rapidly, and placed him for many years at the head
of his profession, Dr. Ozanam never became a rich man.
"Wealth was never his first aim ; he looked upon the medical
profession as a sort of priesthood, and divided his labors al-
most equally between the rich and the poor. His wife for
seventeen years seconded him nobly in this apostolate of
charity. When they had both gown old, and were no Ion.

Life and Works of Ftideric Ozartam. 5

gcr able to climb so nimbly up six and seven stories to the
garrets where his poorer patients dwelt, they bound each
oiher by a mutual promise not to go beyond the fourth story.
Dr. Ozanam's infirm health made this limitation the more
necessary, in that he was subject to a giddiness which seized
him without warning at any moment. His wife, for her part,
suffered from an oppression of the chest, which was increased
almost to suffocation by mounting stairs. Many a time the
poor neighbors of those whom she was toiling up to sec have
come out of their rooms and found her sitting on the stairs,
panting for breath. The husband and wife were not always
loyal in keeping to their mutual promise. More than once
it happened that the doctor, coming discreetly down from
the seventh floor, where some more than common misery had
enticed him, came face to face with his wife treacherously
climbing up to it. It was in coming from one of those
abodes of poverty that he eventually met his death. Fami-
liar as he was with the perils of the dark, broken stairs, he
made a false step and fell, injuring himself so severely that
he died the next day. He had had fourteen children, all of
whom died in childhood, except a daughter, whom he lost
at the age of nineteen, and three sons, of whom Frederic was
the second.

Frederic's childhood offers none of those picturesque or
striking incidents that we like to discover in the dawn of
great men. His one salient trait was an excessive sensibility
to the sufferings of others. It is related that when little more
than a baby, at Milan, he could never hear the little sweeps
as they passed under his nursery windows of a morning cry-
ing, " Spazza camino ! spazza camino !" without sitting up in
his cot to listen with an expression of intense pity on his face
until the plaintive, childish voice died away ; then he would
exclaim with a little sigh, "Poor spazza camino!" and lie
down again.

This precocious sensibility did not, however, exclude a
certain self-willed energy and vehemence of temper. He was

6 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

very fond of games, and very punctilious about keeping to
fair play; but nothing could ever make him own that he
was beaten ; when his playfellows insisted on his giving them
this legitimate satisfaction, the child would stamp his small
foot on the ground and protest that he " would rather die
than say it !"

We find in a letter written to a confidential friend at the
age of sixteen, a sort of autobiography of these early days,
which is sufficiently characteristic to be regarded as tru hful
in its self-judgment :

"Now let me tell you," he says, ' what I have been up to this day. They
say I was very gentle and docile as a child, and they attribute this mainly to
my feeble health ; but I account for it in another way, I had a sister, such a
beloved sister ! who used to take it in turns with my mother to teach me, and
whose lessons were so sweet, so well explained, so admirably suited to my
childish comprehension as to be a real delight to me. All things considered,
1 was pretty good at this period of my life, and, with the exception of some
trifling peccadilloes, I have not much to reproach myself with.

"At seven years old I had a serious illness, which brought me so near
death that everybody said I was saved by a miracle ; not that I wanted kind
care : my dear father and mother hardly left my bedside for fifteen days and
nights. I was on the p)oint of expiring when suddenly I asked for some beer,
£ had always disliked beer, but it saved me. I recovered, and six months
■ater my sister, my darling sister, died. Oh! what grief that was. Then I
Began to learn Latin, and to be naughty ; really and truly I believe I never
was so wicked as at eight years old. And yet I was being educated by a
kind father and a kind mother and an excellent brother ; I loved them dearly,
and at this period I had no friends outside my family ; yet I was obstinate,
passionate, disobedient. I was punished, and I rebelled against it. I used to
write letters to my mother complaining of my punishments. I was lazy to
the last degree, and used to plan all sorts of naughtiness in my mind. This
is a true jKirtrait of me ^ls I was on first going to school at nine and a half
years old. By degrees I improved ; emulation cured my laziness. I was
very fond of my master ; I had some little success, which encouraged me. 1
studied with ardor, and at the same time I began to feel some emotions of
pride. I must also confess that I exchanged a great number of blows with
my comp)anions. But I changed very much for the better when I entered the
fifth class. I fell ill, and was obliged to go for a month to the country, to the
house of a very kind lady, where I acquired some degree of polish, which I
lost in great part soon after.

" I grew rather idle in the fourth class, but I pulled up again in the third.
It was then that I made my first Communion. O glad and blf'ssed day '

L^ff and Work': of Frederic Ozanam. y

caj my right hand wither and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I
ever forget thee 1

' I had changed a good deal by this time ; I had become modest, gentle,
and docile, more industrious and unhappily also rather scrupulous. I still
continued proud and impatient."

Although, looking back from the sustained energy of sixteen
to these first beginnings, Frederic accuses himself of laziness,
he was considered a diligent little scholar from the time of
his entrance into school until his leaving it ; but, like almost
all children endowed with special gifts, there was a dispropor-
tion in the way he applied himself — some studies were irk-
some and distasteful to him, while others he found attractive
and easy. He bestowed special pains, for instance, on his
Latin, and displayed such a facility for Latin verses that his
teacher, M. Legeay, a veteran classicist of the old school,
thought it worth while preserving many of them, some of which
he published in a biographical notice after his pupil's death.
During his passage through the third and second class, be-
tween thirteen and fourteen years of age, Frederic commenc-
ed and very nearly completed a voluminous Latin poem on
the taking of Jerusalem by Titus. The range of his juvenile
muse was wide and ambitious, judging from the specimens
preserved by M. Legeay. There were airy flights with the
skylark, mystic communings with the moon and the stars, an
adieu of Marie Antoinette to the Princess Elizabeth, written
in stately Virgilian hexameters, hymns on sacred subjects,
tender canticles to the Madonna. " I was often astounded
at the strength and elevation of these young flights," says M.
Legeay ; " his analyses of sacred and ancient history were
quite surprising. The subjects where he shone most were
those which gave scope for rehgious and patriotic sentiments."

At fourteen he entered the class of higher studies, and this
was to be the signal of a new and painful experience which
left its mark on the boy's whole after-life. Up to this period
he had never known what it was to doubt; his faith had been
as placid and as trusting as a child's ; but the moment had

8 Life and Worki of Fiedfric Ozanam.

come when he was to pay for the precocious maturity of his
mind and the lofty flights of his imagination; the intellectual
activity which had so quickened his mental powers suddenly
kindled a flame within him that stirred vital questions, and
evoked the demon of doubt, that torment of noble and un-
quiet souls who hunger to believe, and cannot rest until reason
has justified belief. Like Pascal and Joubert and other deep
thinkers, Frederic was doomed to experience, as he himself
described it long years afterwards, " the horror of those doubts
that eat into the heart, pursuing us even at night to the pillow
we have drenched with our tears." Suddenly, without his
being able to discover any immediate cause for it, a change
came over him, his childhke peace was overclouded, he began
to question, to argue, to all but disbelieve. In a confidential
letter to the school-fellow before quoted from, he thus alludes
to this crisis : " I must tell you now of a most painful ex-
perience which began forme just as I entered on my rhetoric,
and which only ended last year. By dint, I suppose, of hear-
ing people talk of infidels and infidehty, I came one day to
ask myself why I believed. Doubt presented itself, but I re-
pulsed the doubt, for I felt I must believe ; I read all the
books I knew of which explained and defended religion, but
none of them fully satisfied me ; I would believe for a month
or two on the authority of such and such a teacher, then an
objection would start up in my mind, and the doubts returned

stronger than ever, O my dear , how I did suffer! for

I wanted to keep my faith. I dipped into Vallar, but Vallar
did not satisfy me; my faith was shaken, and yet I preferred
to cling to it, to believe without understanding, than to goon
doubting, because doubt was such a torture. In this state I
began my philosophy. The thesis of ' certainty ' bewildered
me ; it seemed to me for a moment that I might doubt my
own existence.''

This trial left such a deep impression on him that Frederic
never in after-life could allude to it without strong emotion.
One day, when the temptation was at its worst, clutching

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 9

him almost like a physical pain, a sudden impulse drove him
towards a church near which he happened to be walking; he
quickened his steps, entered, and, falling on his knees, prayed
with all his soul to be delivered from the trial, promising that
if God gave him light to see the truth he would for ever af-
ter devote himself to its defence. While uttering this prayer,
he felt that he was committing himself to a distinct pledge,
which must color his whole life; that if his faith were restored
to him, his life must be consecrated to its service in no ordi-
nary way. Referring to the circumstance in the last work
he ever wrote, with that shuddering sense of a danger escap-
ed which he retained to the last, he says : " The uncertainty
of my eternal destiny left me no peace; I clung to the sa-
cred dogmas in desperation, but they seemed to break in my
grasp ; then it was that the teaching of one who was both
a priest and a philosopher saved me; he brought light into
my mind ; I believed henceforth with an assured faith, and,
touched by this mercy^ vowed to consecrate my days to the
service of that truth which had given me peace."

The philosopher and priest here alluded to was the Abbe
Noirot, a man whose wisdom, learning, and seductive piety
made him a power with a generation of young spirits, con-
temporaries of Ozanam.

M. Ampere says of the Abb6 Noirot : " All those who
studied under this cherished master agree that he had a par-
ticular gift for directing and developing each one in his voca-
tion. He proceeded with his pupils on the Socratic method.
When he saw a young rhetorician arrive at his class of phi-
losophy, puflfed out with recent success, and as full of impor-
tance as ever Euthydemus or Gorgias was, the Christian So-
crates began by bringing the young rhetorician gently to re-
cognize the fact that he knew nothing ; and then, when he
had crushed him under the weight of his own weakness, he
raised him up, and set to work to point out to him what he
really could do. The influence of this able master decided
the course of Ozanam's mind."

JO Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

Lacordaire tells us how the master loved to take this fa-
vorite scholar as the companion of his walks, and how, in
their solitary rambles over the steep and lonely roads out-
iide Lyons, the mature philosopher and the boy would for-
get the lapse of time while they discoursed on deep and lofty
themes — God and His dealings with men being the one
they delighted most to dwell on — till the shades of night
overtook them, as they hurried homewards.

Frederic was the youngest of the hundred and thirty pu-
pils who studied under the Abb6 Noirot ; he reached the
head of his class very quickly, and remained there till he left.
** He was an elect soul," says this venerable master, who
still survives, and still, in his eighty-fourth year, charms the
young men who seek his wisdom for advice, as their fathers
did; "he was marvellously endowed by nature, both in mind
and heart; his industry was incredible; he worked all day
without intermission, and a ])art of the night ; he was devot-
ed, ardent, and singularly modest ; he was cheerful, even
gay, but there was always an undercurrent of seriousness in
him ; he loved a joke dearly, and was sure to be in the
midst of any fun going, for there never was a boy more popu-
lar with other boys. But I never heard of him being in any
mischief; he was most affectionate and sympathetic ; I don't
believe Frederic was capable of inspiring or harboring an an-
tipathy ; he was, however, very fiery, and had often vehe-
ment bursts of indignation, but not against individuals; I
never knew him angry or embittered against any one; he
was simply inaccessible to hatred, except against falsehood
or wrong-doing." Such is his portrait at seventeen, as it is
inscribed on the memory of one who knew him well, and
whose tender admiration for him is as fresh to-day as it was
forty years ago.

But these days of study and pleasant companionship were
drawing to a close. Frederic had completed his term of phi-
losophy, and was now ready to enter on the study of the law.
For this purpose it was necessary for him to go to Paris; but

Life and Wofks of Frederic Ozanam. \\

Dr. Ozanam, in spite of the confidence he had in his son'a
steadiness and principles, shrank, naturally enough, from
sending the boy adrift alone on that dangerous sea where so
many noble young hearts are daily shipwrecked. It was de-
cided, therefore, that he should wait for a couple of years
at Lyons, and be employed meantime in some way which
might serve as a preliminary to future studies at the Ecole de
Droit. The choice of the intermediate occupation was about
the most uncongenial to the young man's taste that could
have been made. He was placed as clerk in an attorney's
ofl&ce. Much, however, as he recoiled from the uninterest-
ing nature of the position, he accepted it without repining,
and took his seat cheerfully in the dusky office, where there
was little to remind him of the poetic and philosophical re-
gions in which he had hitherto dwelt. He worked away as
diligently copying law papers as if they had been so many
theses he was preparing for M. Noirot, and listened with def-
erential patience to the long-winded perorations of the head
clerk. But, do what he would, he could find no pleasure in
the work; so, when he had done all that duty demanded, he
lightened the intervals by studying English, German, He-
brew, and even Sanscrit; in after-office-hours he read also
enormously, and even found leisure to write a treatise against
the St. Simonians, which may be said to have struck the key-
note of his future literary career. " It was like a preface to
the work which was to occupy him to the end of his days,"
says M. Amp«^re.

The sect known as the St. Simonians was so called from
one of its first enthusiasts, who, after his death, was erected
into its founder, no one else being forthcoming to claim the
title. The religion of St. Simon was born of the moral and
social disorganization which followed after the revolution of
1S30. Its main tactic was to glorify Christianity in the past,
while denying and vilifying it in the present, treating it as a
worn-out creed, and building up upon its ruins the new re-
ligion— '• trie religion of the future," as it boldly styled itself.

12 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

It had made a good deal of noise in various parts of France,
fascinating many restless young spirits, who, impatient of the
prevailing apathy, and hungering for a faith of some sort,
caught eagerly at a creed which seemed to promise a solution
of the great social problem. In the course of the winter the
St. Simonians came to Lyons, and were reaping there the
same ephemeral harvest which had rewarded them elsewhere.
Frederic had some passages of arms with them in the col-
umns of the local journals ; but, not satisfied with this, he set
to work and composed his treatise, which appeared in the
month of April, 1831, and dealt a heavy blow at the sect he
combated. M. de Lamartine, on reading it, wrote at once
to congratulate Frederic, observing that his admiration for the
talent of the author was heightened by his astonishment at
his age. " This beginning," he adds, " promises us a new
combatant in the sacred struggle of religious and moral phi-
losophy which this century is sustaining against a materialis-
tic reaction. Like you, I augur well for the issue. We do
not see it, but the voice of conscience, that infallible prophet
of the brave man's heart, promises us that our children shall.
Let us trust to this instinctive promise, and live in the future."
Such episodes seem somewhat out of keeping with the pur-
suits of an attorney's clerk; but Frederic felt that tliis was
only a temporary phase, which might usefully serve as an ap-
prenticeship, but which, meantime, must not absorb him to
the exclusion of higher interests. He never lost sight of this
fact ; and while fulfilling conscientiously his daily task, he
was working still more assiduously to prepare himself for the
higher one that was awaiting him. He set himself to study
the state of society in France, and the knowledge which, even
in his present narrow sphere, he gained of it, of the deep-
seated evils eating into its heart, filled him with profound pity
and an intense longing to help even remotely towards bring-
ing about a better state of things, or at least to cast in his
labors with others better competent to deal with so tremen-
dous a problem.

Life and Works of Frederic Ozananu 13

The following letter, written at the age of seventeen and a
half, to two college friends, reveals fully his views and ambi-
tions at this period :

"15/// Jatt., 1831.
"... You ask what people think here. It would be very difficult for
me to tell you. Philosophically speaking, my belief is that in the provinces
people don't think at all, or at least very little ; they live a life purely indus-
trial and material ; everybody looks after his personal comforts, and takes
care of number one ; and when that personage is satisfied, when the purse is
replenished, then people discuss politics quietly by the fireside, or round the bil-
liard-table ; there is a great deal of fine talk concerning liberty, about which
the talkers themselves understand very little ; people praise the conduct of the
National Guard and the Schools in the journees of December, but they make
small account of the protestations and proclamations of the gentlemen of the
Ecole de Droit, who, on the contrary, are severely blamed for attempting to
govern the Government, and plant their little republic in the midst of our mon-
archy. Material order, moderate liberty, bread and money, this is all people
want here ; they are sick of revolutions and pine for rest ; in a word, the men
of the provinces are neither men of the past nor men of the future, they are
men of the present, ' see-saw men,' as the Gazette calls them.

" So much for my surroundings. And after that you want to know what I
think ; a poor little dwarf like me who sees things from afar, through the
newspapers, which are seldom to be trusted, and the still more absurd gossip
of our politicians, like a man looking through a bad eye-glass ! . , . All I
can do is to keep my temper, to read just enough news to know what is going
on, to confine myself as much as possible to my individual sphere, to improve
my mind while keeping aloof for the present, pursuing my studies outside
society, so that I may be able to enter it later with some advantage for others
and for myself ; this is the line of conduct I have felt compelled to adopt, and
which M. Noirot encourages me to persevere in, and which I advise you, my
dear friend, to adopt also ; for, honestly, wc young fellows are too green at
present, too insufficiently nourished with the living sap of science, to be
able to offer any ripe fruit to society. Let us not make haste, and while the
storm throws down many who are on the heights, let us grow quietly in the
shade, so that we may prove ourselves full-grown men, full of vigor, when the
days of transition shall have passed away, and we shall be wanted. For my
part, my choice is made, my plan for the future is sketched out, and, as in
friendship bound, I will tell you what it is.

"Like you, I feel that the past is falling to pieces, that the foundations of
the old edifice are shaken, and that a terrible convulsion has changed the face
of the earth. But what is to come out of these ruins ? Is society to remain
buried under the rubbish of its broken thrones, or is it to arise and reappear
younger, more brilliant, more beautiful ? Shall we behold novos coelos ei
novam terram? There is the question. I, who believe in Providence, and
^o not despair of my country, like Charles Nodier, I believe in a sort of

14 Life and Works of Frederic Ozannm.

palingenesis ; but what is to be the form, what is to be the law, of this new
Older of society, I do not undertalje to prophesy.

*' Nevertheless, what I feel confident of is that there exists a Providence,
and that that Providence cannot for six thousand years have abandoned rea-
sonable creatures, naturally desirous of the true, the good, and the beautiful,
to the genius of evil and error ; that, consequently, all the creeds of humanity
cannot have been mere extravagant delusions, and that there are truths scat-
tered over the world. The thing is to discover these truths, and to disengage
them from the falsehoods they are mixed up with ; we must search the rums
of the old world for the corner-stone on which the new is to be rebuilt. It
would be very much like those pillars which historians tell us were raised be-
fore the deluge to transmit existing traditions to those who might survive,
just as the ark, borne over the waters, bore safely within it the fathers of the
human species. But this corner-stone, this pillar of traditions, this lifeboat,
where are we to seek for it ? Amidst all the notions of antiquity where are
we to dig for the only true and legitimate ores ? Where must we begin, and
where end ?

" And here I stop, and set to thinking in this wise : the first want of man,
the first want of society, is some notion of a religion. The human heart
thirsts for the infinite. Moreover, if there be a God, and if there be men,
there must be some connection between them, hence a religion of some sort ;
consequently, a primitive revelation ; consequently, again, there is a primi-
tive religion, ancient in its origin, essentially divine, and therefore essentially
true. This is the inheritance, transmitted from on high to the first man, and
from the first man to his descendants, that I am bent on discovering. And I
mean to pursue my search through time and space, stirring the dust of tombs,
digging up the rubbish of temples, disentombing all the myths from the savages
of Cook to the Egj'pt of Sesostris, from the Indians of Vishnu to the Scandi-
navians of Odin. I investigate the traditions of every people, I enquire into
their reason and origin, and, aided by the lights of geography and history, I
recognize in every religion two distinct elements — one variable, individual,
secondary, having its origin in the circumstance of time and place in which
each people found itself ; another immutable, universal, primitive, inexplica-
ble to history and geography ; and as this latter element is to be found in all
religious creeds, and stands out more complete and pure according as we re-
mount to the most remote antiquity, I conclude that it is this alone which
reigned in the early days, and which constitutes the primitive religion of man.
I conclude, consequently, that religious truth is that which, spread all over the
face of the earth, is to be found amidst all nations, transmitted by the first
man to his posterity, then corrupted and mixed up with all sorts of fables and
falsehoods.

"This is what I felt society wanted. I was conscious of a corresponding
want in myself. I had need of something solid to take hold of, something
that I could take root in and cling to, in order to resist the torrent of doubt ;
and then, O my friends 1 my soul was filled with a great joy and a great con-
solation ; for, lo ! it discovered, by the sheer force of reason, that this some-
thing was none other than that Catholicism which was first taught me by my

Life and Works of Frederic Ozatiam. 15

mother, which was dear to my childhood, and so often fed my mind and heart
with its beautiful memories, and its still more beautiful hopesr=-Catholicism,
with all its grandeurs and all its delights ! Shaken for a time by doubt, I feel
the invincible need to cling, with all my might, to the pillar of the temple,
were it even to crush me in its fall ; and, lo ! I find this same pillar supported
by science, luminous %vith the beams of wisdom, of glory, and of beauty. 1
find it, and I clasp it with enthusiastic love. I will take my stand by its side,
and there, stretching out my arm, I will point to it as a beacon of deliverance
to those who are tossing on the sea of life. Happy shall I be if a few friends
come and rally round me. Then we should unite our efforts, and create a
work together, others would join us, and, perchance, the day would come
when all mankind would be gathered together beneath the same protecting
shade. Catholicism, in its eternal youth and strength, would rise suddenly
on the world, and, placing itself at the head of the age, lead it on to civiliza-
tion and to happiness. O my friends ! I feel overcome in speaking to you ;
I am filled with intellectual delight, for the work is magnificent, and I am
young. I have great hopes, and I believe that the day will come when I shall
have nourished ajid strengthened my thought, and shall be able to express it
worthily. Yes, the preliminary labors have already opened out to me the vast
perspective which I have unfolded to you, and over which my imagination
soars transported with joy. But it is a small thing to contemplate the career
I have to run ; the thing is to start on the road, for the hour is at hand. If I
mean to write a book at five-and-thirty, I must begin to prepare for it at
eighteen, for the preliminary studies are multitudinous. Just see ^\•^lat an
amount of study it involves ! I must acquire twelve languages, so as to be
able to consult sources and documents. I must be fairly master of geology
and astronomy, in order to discuss the chronological and cosmogonical sys-
tems of p)eoples and savants. I must master universal history in all its breadth,
and the history of religious creeds in all its depth. This is what I have to do
before I arrive at worthily expressing my idea. I dare say you will exclaim at
the audacity of this poor fellow Ozanam, and compare him to the frog in La
Fontaine, and to the ridicttlns imts in Horace. Just as you like ! I, too, was
aghast for a moment at my own boldness ; but what is one to do ? \\Tien av
idea has taken hold of you, and possesses your whole mind for two years, are
you free to withstand it ? When a voice keeps continually crying out to you,
Do this ; I so will it, can you bid it be silent ?

"Besides, I have laid my whole scheme before M.Noirot, who encourages
me to carry it out ; and when I urged that perhaps I should find the task too
heavy, he assured me that I should meet with numbers of studious young men
ready to assist me with their advice and their labor. And then, my friends,
I thought of you."

How thoroughly single-minded Frederic was in his grand
schemes of rehgious championsliip appears in many letters of
the same date, where lie lays bare his heart to the young
friends whom he was seeking to enlist in his chivalrous design.

1 6 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

' Your ideas of glory are natural enough/in a young man," he writes to M.
Falconnet, his cousin ; "we must not make it oui aim, but accept it as a happy
result. Man, loving his own existence, longs to perpetuate it ; he lives again
in his children, he lives again in his works, he seems to live again in the hearts
of all who bless his name. True glory consists in the gratitude of posterity.
Just as the righteous man does not bestow his gifts to obtain gratitude, yet
nevertheless accepts its tribute with a sweet sense of satisfaction ; so should
the true philosopher, the Christian, never act in view of glory, while at the
same time he cannot remain insensible to it. Hence it is, that as ingratitude
and oblivion sometimes follow the greatest benefits, the just man builds his
hopes higher, and awaits both reward and glory from an incorruptible Judge :
he appeals from ungrateful men to God, who never fails."

Ozanam was blessed by nature with a singularly contented
disposition as regarded external circumstances, although, as
we shall see, his soul was naturally unquiet, and often
"troubled within him."

He was poor, and he was contented to remain so. There
seldom was a young man, conscious of high intellectual gifts,
who began life freer from the mere ambition of making money,
and a position, in the worldly sense. " I often thank God,"
he says, "for having placed meinoneof tliose positions on the
confines of indigence and independence where one is inured
to privations without being absolutely shut out from enjoy-
ments; where one runs no risk of becoming stultified by the
indulgence of every wish, and where, on the other hand, one
is not distracted by the clamorings of want. God knows
what a snare my weak nature would have found in the ener-
vating influence of the wealthy classes, or in the sordid pri-
rations of indigence."

CHAPTER II.

1831.

Dr, Ozanam, who had cause probably to realize the unad<
visability of condemning Frederic any longer to the obscurity
of his present employment, suddenly determined to abridge
the term of delay, and sent him to Paris to begin his legal
studies towards the close of the year 1831, Frederic being then
in his eighteenth year.

His first experience of the new life, which had looked so at-
tractive in the distance, was anything but pleasant, Paris was
a very different place then from what it is now. The young
Catholic student coming to Paris now finds no lack of centres
where he can claim welcome and companionship, and at once
lose the sense of his isolation in the warmth of a common
faith and common struggles. But it was not so just after the
revolution of 1830 had convulsed society to its base, and de-
stroyed all cohesion. All who could leave the capital had
fled, and security was not yet sufficiently re-established to lure
them back from the quiet of the provinces to a city which,
then as now, was the recognized centre of disturbance and dis-
order, the heartli from which the spark flew to set the fire
abroad. Parents were terrified to let their sons return to
Lyceums and Colleges where atheism reigned supreme ; and,
rather than expose their faith to the risk it must run in such
an atmosphere, and under such influences, they kept them at
home, out of harm's way, hoping that the effects of the storm
would pass away, and fairer weather gradually return. They
began to perceive, however, that this hope, if it did not ulti-
mately prove vain, was likely to be indefinitely deferred ; so it
became a question of depriving their sons of all libera! educa-

l8 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

tion, and thus closing the door of every honorable career to
them, or of sending them back to the public schools, and tak-
ing the consequences. The greater number were still hover-
ing between these two alternatives when Frederic Ozanam
came to Paris. On entering the classes of the Ecole de Droit
he found that he and three others were the only Christian
students who attended them.

His first feeling on discovering that his hfe was for the next
few years to be cast amongst young men who were either
avowed atheists, or rationalists, or St. Simonians, was a pain-
ful one. Fresh from the pure atmosphere of a Christian home,
and animated by an ardent love of his faith, he could not
bear the idea of daily companionship with those who made
open profession of hating Christianity, who scoffed at its
doctrines and blasphemed its Divine Founder. Yet there
was no choice between this and complete isolation, which, to
a sympathetic nature like his, seemed unbearable ; neverthe-
less, he bravely chose the latter, and for the first months of
his residence in Paris he kept aloof from all intimacies, and as
far as possible from all acquaintance with his fellow-students.

He had at first not even the compensation of a cheerful
fireside to return to after his hard day's work. Madame
Ozanam had deputed an old friend to look out for a quiet
boarding-house, where her son would be comfortable, and
where he would have some safe and cheerful society in the
evenings. The old friend's choice proved an unlucky one,
as we learn from Frederic's first letter to his mother, dated
from his new abode, November 7, 183 1 :

"... Here I am alone, without any amusement or any sort of consola-
tion. I, so used to fireside talks, who took such pleasure in seeing every day
around me those dear ones who love me ; I, so terribly in need cf advice and
encouragement, behold me cast unprotected, without a rallying-point of any
sort, into this great capital of egotism, this vortex of human passions and er-
rors ! The few young men whom I know * are too far off for me to see them
often. I have no one to pour my heart out to but you, my dearest mother—

• Some young friends from Lyons, come to Paris to study like himself, but who lived at the
•tber extremity of the city.

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 19

fou and God . . . ; but these two are all in all to me. I have a thousand
things to say to you, but "where shall I begin ? I am installed, since Saturday,
in a Utile room looking to the south, and near the Jardin des Plantes. This
sounds very nice, but it is not so in reality ; I am very uncomfortable. I ^jij
a Jong way off from the law schools, the lending libraries, from the centre ji.
my studies, and my Lyonese friends ; then my landlady strikes me as a sly
gossip ; her talk and her manners lead me to suspect that she looks very lov-
ingly on a young man's purse. Lastly, and this is my chief grievance, the so-
ciety is not good. There are davies and demoiselles boarders also, who have
their meals at our table, who keep thejconversation to themselves, and whose
tone and manners are extremely vulgar ; from my room I hear them just now
roaring with laughter ; they congregate every evening in the drawing-room
to play cards, and pressed me very much to join them, but, as you may im-
agine, I declined. These people are neither Christians nor Turks. I am the
only one who abstains* — a circumstance which diverts them exceedingly.
You will let me know what you think of all this, and whether you wish me to
look out and make some other arrangement for myself.''

He then proceeds to relate his impressions of Paris :

" I have seen the Pantheon, that strange monument, a pagan temple in
Jhe midst of a city whose inhabitants are either Christians or atheists; its
magnificent cupola is widowed of the cross that once crowned it, and tr.e
sombre tint of its superb facade indicates an origin far anterior to its present
extravagant destination. What does it mean, in truth, a tomb without a
cross, and a sepulchre where no religious idea prevails ? If death be but a
material phenomenon that leaves no hope behind it, what sense is there in
these honors renaered to dr}- bones and flesh falling into corruption ? The
religion of the Pantheon is nothing but a comedy, like that of Reason and
Liberty. But the people must have a faith, and when the faith of the Gospel
was torn from them there was nothing for it but to fabricate another for
them, even if it is made up of madness and imbecility

" I was amply compensated for these sad reflections by the beauty of the
church of St. Etienne du Mont, my parish, the pomp of its ceremonies and
the magnificence of the singing and the organ. A thrill of delight ran through
my whole being when I heard that instrument of a thousand voices resound-
ing beneath the Gothic roof, glorifying God, and chanting forth His praises,
as David says, on the harp and the cithern, on flutes and trumpets. How
^eat the power of music is, and how sublime and beautiful the Catholic faith
that inspires it !"

The post did not travel so quickly forty years ago as it
does nowadays, and before an answer could arrive from
Lyons the forlorn student was rescued from his uncomfort-
able quarters by an unforeseen piece of good fortune. He

That is, observea the Friday £ast.

20 Life atid Works of Frederic Ozanam.

had met once the celebrated mathematician, M. Ampere, at
the house of a friend at Lyons, and taking advantage of the
great man's kindly invitation to come and see him when he
came to Paris, Frederic called upon him a few days after the
date of the above letter.

Andre Marie Ampere was a very great man indeed, a
member of the Institute, and of a number of other learned
societies, as well as an unrivalled luminary in his own per-
son ; but it was a greatness unalloyed by a tinge of pedantry
or hauteur. Frederic approached him with a certam trepi-
dation, but he was quickly put at his ease by the frank cor-
diaUty of the untidy old savan, and before many minutes
was pouring out the tale of his domestic grievances as to an
old friend. M. Ampere listened with attention, then, rising
suddenly, he threw wide open a door of the salon, and said,
pointing to the room within, " Come and look at this room,
and tell me how you like it." It was a large, comfortably
furnished bedroom, looking on the garden. Frederic replied
that he liked it very much. "Then come and take possession
of it; it is heartily at your disposal," said M. Ampere; "you
can pay me what you are paying at yo\xx pension, and I hope
you will be better off; you will make the acquaintance of ray
son,* who is occupied studying German literature; his li-
brary meantime is at your disposal ; you abstain, so do we ;
my sister and my daughter dine with us; that will be a little
society for you. What do you say to the plan ? "

Frederic said it was almost too delightful to be real, and
that he would write at once to his father about it. The reply
was such as might have been anticipated ; and a month later
the student writes home in high spirits, describing his new
manner of Hfe, and enclosing a plan of his room, with its fur-
niture and ornaments, for his mother.

•'You will all laugh," he says, "but I am sure the scrawl will amuse
mamma ; she can now fancy me seated at my table, getting: into bed, going
from my table to fetch a block of wood, and putting it into my stove !

Then absent at a German I'niversiiy; this room - as the one he occupied when at home.

Life and Works nf Fredenc Ozanam. 2 1

We brccikfast at ten, and dine at half -past five, all together — M. Ampere,
his daughter and sister. M. Ampere talks a good deal, and his conversation
is amusing and always instructive ; since I have been here (two days), I have
already learned many things from him. His daughter talks cleverly, and takes
part in all that is said ; M. Ampere is very caressing in his manner to her, but
he never speaks to her about anything but science. He has a prodigious
memory for everything scientific, in every conceivable department of know-
ledge, but he never remembers anything connected with the menage. He
learned Latin all by himself, and began to write Latin verses only two years
ago, and does it remarkably well. He has a wonderful knowledge of history,
and reads a dissertation on the hieroglyphics with as much pleasure as a de-
scription of some experiment in physics and natural history. All this comes
to him like intuition. The discoveries which have raised him to the pinnacle
where he stands to-day came to him all at once, he tells me. He is just now
finishing a grand plan for an Encyclopadia. Are you not glad, my dear
father, to have me under the roof of this kind and excellent man ? I forgot
to tell you that the most perfect politeness reigns in the family. I also forgot
to g^ive you my address ; here it is — 19 Rue des Fosses St. Victor."

His residence with M. Ampere brought Frederic into con-
tact with the most distinguished men of science and letters of
the day; they all seem to have treated the modest young stu-
dent with a kindness and condescension which charmed him.

"All Xhtst savants of Paris are full of affability," he informs his mother.
" Yesterday I saw M. Serullas,* a most worthy man, gifted in the highest
degree with scientific absence of mind. I found him in the midst of some
chemical manipulations, which he took care not to interrupt while receiving
me very graciously, and treating me every now and then, as he said, to an
explosion of fragments of potassium ; but he was not in tune, his experiirents
were not successful. It is surprising how learned everybody is here ! You
see I have turned optimist ; in my last letter I was a pessimist, because I was
worried ; everything seemed to me to be going wrong. BiTT" now that things
are quiet at Lyons, and that I have society and a room to my fancy, and the
prospect of books and fire and money — \\\\:xX. more can I want ? You, my dear
father, you, and all my family ; oh ! that is what I still want, and what I long
ardently for. What a happiness it will be to embrace you in eight months
from this I "

Amongst the celebrities whom Frederic always reckoned it a
privilege to have come in contact with at this period of his
life, was M. de Chateaubriand. He had been furnished with
a letter of introduction to the great man on coming to Paris,
but he kept it nearly two months before he had the courage

• Professor of Chemistry at Val-de-Grace.

S3

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

to present it. At last, on New Year's Day, he put it in his
pocket and sallied forth before twelve o'clock, determined to
take the desperate step. His heart beat violently as he rang
at the door of the man whom Charles the Tenth had called
' one of the powers of this world." M. de Chateaubriand
had just come in from mass; he received his timid visitor
w:th the most winning grace, questioned him with lively in-
terest concerning liis studies, his tastes, his future plans and
prospects ; then, fixing a peculiar look on him, he enquired
whether he had yet been to any of the theatres. Frederic
replied that he had not. " And do you intend to go ? " asked
M. de Chateaubriand, with his eye still bent on him. Fre-
deric hesitated for a moment; he had promised his mother
not to go, and he never dreamed of breaking his word, but he
was afraid of appearing ridiculous in the eyes of the great
poet if he confessed this ; the struggle, however, was brief;
he replied frankly that he had resolved never to put his foot
inside a theatre, and why. A beam of satisfaction lighted
up M. de Chateaubriand's face, and stooping forward he
embraced the young man with emotion. " I implore you to
be true to that promise to your mother,' he said. "You
would gain nothing at the theatre, and you might lose a great
deal."

Frederic counted this Httle episode amongst the many sig-
nal kindnesses which Providence placed in his path at the
perilous moment of his dibiit in Paris. Henceforth, when any
of his freethinking companions proposed his accompanying
them to the play, he would answer boldly, and without fear
of ridicule, ** M. de Chateaubriand advised me strongly not
to go, and I promised him I would not."

But indeed from the day he entered on his studies in Paris,
his time was so completely filled up that there was little mar-
gin left for such amusements, had he been inchned for them.
He worked all day, and continued to encroach frequently on
his night's rest, to prepare the labors of the morrow. More-
over, the dream which had illuminated the dusky precincts of

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 23

the attorney's office for nearly a year was still dominant in
his mind, guiding all his efforts, overshadowing all minor am-
bitions : the desire to do something, to help in doing some-
thing, for God and his fellow-creatures. This was the aim
of all his studies — to fit himself for some mission of usefulness,
to whose success his personal interest and success as a stu-
dent, or even later as a barrister, must remain absolutely sub-
ordinate. No wonder that these lofty aspirations and deep
musings engendered a sort of tender melancholy in his ardent
soul, compressed as he was by circumstances so little favor-
able to his wide humanitarian ambitions. He writes to Fal-
connet: '

" I have been here now a fortnight in possession of a charming room, with a
hospitable table, pleasant society, and the conversation of my host, which is al-
ways instructive, and often amusing ; one class of law and two of literature a
day; the frequent society of Henri.* Surely this is more than enough to
make a student's life happy ! and yet— if you tliink I am happy you are mis-
taken. I am not happy ; I am conscious of an immense void, an indescriba-
ble malaise. ... I dislike Paris because there is no life here, no faith, no
love ; it is like a huge corpse to which my youth is chained alive, and whose
icy coldness freezes while its corruption poisons me. It is in the midst of this
moral desert that one understands fully and repeats ardently that cry of the
Psalmist :

• Habitavi cum habitantibus Cedar, raultum incola fuit anima mea !
Si oblitus fuero tui, Jerusalem, adhsreat lingua meafaucibus meis I'

"These accents of immortal poetry resound often in my soul ; this vast
city where I am, as it were, lost, is to me Kedar, Babylon, the land of exile
and pilgrimage, while Sion is my native town, with its provincial simplicity,
the charity of its inhabitants, its altars erect, and its faith respected. Science
and Catholicism are my only consolations, and assuredly they are noble ones ;
but here also 1 find hopes deceived, obstacles to be overcome, difficulties to
be conquered. You ktio'M of old my longing to surround jny self ivilhyotmg
men feeling and thinking as I do ; I knoiv that there aj-e such, fiiany such, but
they are scattered ^ like gold on the dunghill,'' a7td the task of gathering de-
fenders under one flag is proverbially a difficult one. I hope nevertheless,
in one of my next letters, to be able to give you some more definite hopes
on this head.

'■ How do we stand at present regarding scientific ideas ? what is the posi-
tion of the schools, the belligerent powers irt the field of philosophy ?

" We must first consider that after all our disputes and struggles, after all

* tleiiri Pessooncau.x, bis cousin, a young man of high moral and intellectual endowments, anit
|ev9tedly attached to Frederic

24 TJfe and Works of Frrdnic Ozanatn.

partial problems, a moment must come when reason sums up all her doubts into
one, and proposes the grand general problem. In our day this problem may be
thus expressed, What was man made for ? What the aim and the law of hu-
manity ? Considered with regard to the past centurj', there is progress, since the
very terms of the problem imply the existence of a providence, an aim, a crea-
tive and conservative idea. The question at this stage appeals for its solution
to philosophy and history. You can understand the immense importance at-
tached in these days to historical studies. Up to this point everybody is
agreed ; but here they split, the division being caused by the very premises of
the question. One side takes psychology as the basis of its researches, and builds
up to itself a sort of abstract man after the fashion of Condillac's statue. In
this man it sees all it wishes to see, and hence deduces a philosophical for-
mula on which it spreads out history as on a sort of Procrustes-bed, cutting
and hacking all that has any difficulty in fitting into its inflexible frame.
These people, who are but following after Rousseau, Dupuys, and Volney,
have lighted on the admirable discovery that all religions began with fetichism,
and they go about proclaiming it to whoever has ears to hear, holding forth
about the law of progress, the extinction of Christianity, and the approaching
advent of a new religion. This is what Professor Jouffroy preached to us only
the other day at the Sorbonne, that ancient Sorbonne which was founded by
Christianity, and whose dome is still crowned with the sign of the Cross.

" But in opposition to this school, which calls itself the Rationalistic, an-
ether has sprung up by the name of the Traditional, not because it has repu-
diated reason, but because history is the groundwork and tradition the start-
ing-point of its system. In its ranks are enrolled MJI. de Chateaubriand, de
Lamennais, d'Ekstein, Ballanche, de Donald ; and in Germany, Schlegel,
Baader, Stolberg, Goerres. They distinguish two aims of human knowledge,
the finite and the infinite, philosophical truth and religious truth ; two ways
of knowing, reason and belief, analysis and synthesis, or perhaps, as the
Church defines it, the order of nature and the order of grace. Now, the finite
is pressed upon all sides by the infinite ; the infinite is God, the Alpha and
ihe Omega, the beginning and the end. Hence it follows that synthesis is
at once the basis and the crown of humanity, and that religious truth is the
source and final end of philosophical truth. From these premises there springs
up a vast theory concerning the relations of science and faith, and a wide ex-
planation of history. And as synthesis is the primitive fact which precedes
all knowledge, it follows that psychology is incapable of sounding the depth
of nature, or grasping her breadth. It is therefore in history that we must
pursue our researches and our study of her ; it is history which must tell us
the history of mankind. They assert, moreover, that fetichism, far from being
the first step of humanity, is the last degree of corruption ; that souvenirs of
the age of gold, and of the first fault, and of expiation by blood, are sown
everywhere amongst the peoples. This is their theorj'. Meantime our work
is maturing in the young Catholic minds, and will appear in its fulness at
the appointed time. Never was a history of human religion more imperative-
ly called for by social needs,

♦' Tempus erit. . . ."

CHAPTER III

1831.

In order to understand the social conditions which Ozanam
describes, and which stirred him to such dismay and com-
passion, it is necessary that we should glance back to the
opening of the nineteenth century, and realize what was the
state of religious feeling in France just after the Revolution had
subsided, and left the country still heaving from the storm
which had uprooted all her old beliefs and traditions, and
overturned her civil and religious institutions, and built up out
of these ruins an edifice of order, where the first essential ele-
ment of order was wanting.

When Napoleon came and took the destinies of France in
hand, religion, in so far as the state and the nation at large
were concerned, had ceased to exist ; it was practically abol-
ished; its temples were turned into stables and warehouses, or
else profaned by monstrous rites and revolting orgies, in the
name of the goddess Reason ; no external sign bore witness
to any covenant between heaven and earth; there was no re-
ligious instruction to be had anywhere ; children grew up like
animals without souls ; the remnants of the clergy were scat-
tered through the provinces, oflSciating in holes and corners,
hiding from the hostile and ubiquitous police of the republic,
mistrusting as spies those who came furtively to implore their
ministry ; a certain number of constitutional priests in Paris
were feebly attempting to blow a spark from the cold ashes
of a Church pulverized by the Revolution. There were still,
no doubt, noble examples of fidelity to the faith to be found
throughout the country, but these were exceptions to the
general rule of atheism and freethinking. The Church ha<i

35

26 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

fallen into contempt long before contempt had translated
itself into the active hostility and open violence of the Revo-
lution. The Church — or what has in all ages been identified
with her, for glory or for shame, the clergy — had lost her
hold upon public esteem. There were saints amongst them
in those days, as there always have been, but there was, on
the surface, a class of men, such as the abbds de cour, who, by
their crimes and follies, had become identified with the regime
whose corruption eventually brought about its own downfall,
dragging the Church with it, and shattering the sacred edifice
so terribly that, to human eyes, the ruin of the altar seemed
as complete and irreparable as the ruin of the throne. Even
those who believed in the immortality of the Church herself
confessed, with sorrow, that in France her reign was over.
The admission, sad as it was, implied no disloyalty towards
the faith. Faith can never die ; the Word of God is immortal,
but no particular spots on earth have been assigned as its
dwelling-place, or the shrine of its eternal presence. Africa
had held it once, and so had Antioch and Jerusalem and Con-
stantinople ; but a time came wlien the divine guest passed
away from these lands, the current of the stream was turned
aside, and mysteriously diverted into other channels. Had
the time come when France, so long the fountain of Christian-
ity, was to see the waters flow out of her midst, and depart
irrevocably to fertilize distant and more faithful lands? The
history of other peoples was there to show a precedent for
this dispensation, and tliere were few signs to bid the most
sanguine hope that the kingdom of Clovis and St. Louis was
not doomed to share the fate which had overtaken the coun-
try of St. Augustine.

There was one man, one only, in whose hands, as far as
human judgment could see, the power was vested of averting
the final catastrophe ; but he was abroad, busy with other
conquests than those of the kingdom which is not of this
world. He was destroying the armies of Europe, overturn-
ing thrones, keeping the eyes of all nations fixed on him with

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 27

terror and amazement. France looked on in wild exultation ;
everything connected with her brilliant young hero partook
of the character of a gigantic legend; popular enthusiasm
clothed him with the prestige of a demigod. No conqueror
ever returned to his native country armed with a mightier
power over her destinies for good or for evil than Napoleon
after the campaigns of Egypt and Italy. Those who knew
him best could hardly hope that he would use it well ; that is
to say, nobly, disinterestedly, patriotically, like a man who
loses sight of himself and his personal ambitions in the pro
found sense of the responsibility of his mission. Except to
those immediately about him, little was known in France of
Napoleon's character and opinions beyond that he was a
republican and a great military commander ; the official re-
ports of his harangues and proclamations which appeared in
the Moniteur were not full or honest enough to reveal him to
the public at home as he was known to his generals and the
army. It was not known, for instance, that he boasted loud-
ly in the East of having " overturned the cross " ; or that in
addressing the Arabs he had said, " We also are true Mussul-
mans. Have we not destroyed the Pope, who wanted us to
declare war against the Mussulmans ? " * But it was known
and remembered by many, that a year before, in his speech
at the Luxembourg, he had declared " religion to be one of
those prejudices which the French people had yet to over-
come" (Christmas, 1797). Almost anything might be expect-
ed from so elastic a believer ; but no one was prepared for
what really did come.

On the i8th of June, 1800, four days after the battle 0/
!Marengo, Napoleon assisted publicly at a solemn Te Deum
in the cathedral of Milan, and on coming out observed
jocosely to his staff, that " the atheists of Paris would be furi-
ous when they heard of it." And he said truly; they were.

A priest named the Abbe Fournier f was one of the first to

• Manifesto of July 2, 1798.

t See introduction to Concordat by Portalia*

28 Life a7id Works 'f Frederic Ozanam.

hear of the extraordinary occurrence, and, in a sermon which
he preached the next day at St, Roch, he announced it to his
audience in an impassioned and picturesque form ; he evoked
the image of a young hero, who, after gathering glory on a
thousand battle-fields, was suddenly overpowered by a sense
of gratitude to the God of armies, and flew publicly to invoke
His blessing on France and the victorious soldiers who were
about to return to her.

The republic was so shocked at the scandalous libel, that
the Abbe Fournier was immediately arrested as a madman,
carried off to the lunatic asylum of Charenton, dressed in the
humiliating costume of its inmates, and locked up.

It required the influence of several statesmen, including
Portalis, to obtain his deliverance after eiglit days' detention.
Meantime the truth of the supposed libel had travelled to
Paris ; four months later the Abbe Fournier was named a
bishop, and about a year later the Concordat was signed.

This great transaction, which M. Thiers speaks of as "the
most important which the Court of Rome ever concluded
with France, perhaps with any Christian power," and which,
if we are to believe the Abbe Pradt, Napoleon often spoke of
as the greatest mistake of his reign,* gave almost universal
dissatisfaction to the French people. Tlie republicans were
furious, because the re-establishment of the Church was like
the triumph of royalism, and the defeat and humiliation of
the Revolution.

The royalists were angry, because the Concordat robbed
them of their chief grievance, and broke the strongest weapon
in their hand ; hitherto the cause of royalty had been synony-
mous with that of the Church, henceforth it ceased to be so.

The philosophers were indignant, because it belied their
triumphant prophecies concerning the death of Christianity,
and its final burial under the reign of atheism and reason.

The Constitutional clergy j- were angry, because it placed

• Les quatre Concordats.

t Those who took the oath to the Civil Conatitntion.

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 29

them in a false position ; the rank they held from the Revo-
lution was now compromised, perhaps nullified.

The faithful clergy, who might have had real grounds foi
rejoicing, were afraid to do so ; they dared not trust the
treaty; it might prove after all but an exchange of bondage.
Time showed how much sagacity there was in this instinctive
mistrust, which at the moment was regarded as treasonable
by the suggesters of the new treaty.

Few measures, perhaps, have been more diversely judged
by history than this of the Concordat. The enemies of Na-
poleon ridicule and condemn it as an elaborate piece of
hypocrisy, while his admirers extol it as the wisest and grand-
est achievement of his reign. It was undeniably an admira-
ble piece of statecraft; a measure of policy worthy of the
deep and lofty mind that compiled the Code Napoleon.

We have no reason to believe that Napoleon was actuated
by higher motives, by respect for the Church, and belief in
her supernatural vitality ; but his actions proved on many oc-
casions that he was not devoid of the religious sense, although
it may not have carried him beyond a certain instinctive
superstition. On the other hand, his knowledge of human
nature and of the history of mankind taught him to recognize
the absolute necessity of a Church of some sort in every State,
of an altar where the people could meet and worship, a God
whom, if they did not love, they would at least fear, and who
would serve the purposes of state by constituting a kind of
supreme court of appeal, whose tribunal, having its seat in
the conscience of the citizen, would facilitate the exercise of
the law, and bring its influence to bear on the governed and
the governing alike. Starting from this general principle.
Napoleon was, moreover, clear-sighted enough to discern the
radical Catholicism of France, and to see that no other re-
ligion could ever supply or supplant the old one in the heart
of the people. " Ninety-three " had done its best, and that
best had been terrible, but it had not succeeded in crushing
the seeds of Catholicism out of the soil, so as to leave it

TO Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

ready for the sowing of a new faith ; the Catholic Church,
despised, decimated, downtrodden as she was, had still an
inalienable hold on the hearts and consciences of the people ;
she was still, therefore, a power to be reckoned with, and it
is to the credit of the legislator's genius at least that, sur-
rounded as he was by atheists and scoffers, and himself per-
sonally careless enough on the score of religion, he saw and
acknowledged this fact. Unbelief was rampant in all classes,
more especially in the educated ones, but Napoleon was not
deceived by this surface aspect of the national mind. Since
the State must have a religion, that religion could be no
other than the Catholic.

The Concordat of 1801 was the practical expression of this
belief. Napoleon was never a devout, perhaps not even a
sincere. Catholic, but he never failed to exhibit in public re-
spect for the religion he professed ; he upheld it as a necessary
element in good and sound government ; he regarded it as
the most valuable police a nation can maintain, an institu-
tion not to be served by, but to serve, the State. His subse-
quent conduct towards the Holy See was quite consistent with
these opinions, was in fact their logical outcome. The official
history of the Concordat, and the correspondence between its
author and Portalis connected with its execution, attests at
every page that, as First Consul and as Emperor, Napoleon
regarded the clergy and the hierarchy verj- much in the light
of a body-guard of soldiers and mayors; the bishops, "my
bishops," were so many mitred prefects in command of an
army of minor functionaries — the priests — with a Minister of
Public Worship holding command over all. A sous-pr^fei
under the second Empire was a more independent personage
than a bishop under the first. The latter could not leave his
diocese for a day without permission from the Minister of
Public Worship, who could not grant it without the authoriza-
tion of the First Consul. The Bishop of Meaux, the succes-
sor of Bossuet, was suffering from a severe attack of ophthal-
mia, and had to wait some time for leave to go to Paris for

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanatn. 31

medical assistance ; it came at last direct from Napoleon
himself, and coupled with an injunction that the bishop should
" occupy himself diligently with the affairs of his diocese
while in Paris."

Tlie same petty despotism was exercised, as far as possible,
towards the Holy See. No decree of the Sovereign Pontiff
was valid, or even made public, until it had received the
sanction of the Government — a system which placed the clergy
in the constant dilemma of having to choose between obedi-
ence to the Church and the mandates of the Pope, and their
allegiance as citizens to the civil power. Such a state of things
was calculated to test severely the mettle of the ecclesiastical
body, and it must be said to their honor that, as a body, they
came nobly out of the ordeal. Not a few were found who
rendered to Caesar more than Caesar's due, but the great ma-
jority contrived to ally prudence with becoming independence
and to maintain the dignity of their sacred character intact.
We must bear in mind, in order to appreciate this fact as it
deserves, that it was long since the political and social state
of France had been favorable to the growth of dignity and in-
dependence, or to the formation of manliness of character.
The reign of Louis XV. had not been a school for confessors,
though the timid priesthood of that dissolute reign would no
doubt have furnished its contingent of martyrs had they been
called for then, as they were later by the Revolution. Na-
poleon, on his advent to power, found a clergy who had been
inured to suffer and trained to die, but who had lost the art
■ of fighting. His quick sagacity detected the weak point in
the shield, and hit there. He began by professing unqualified
respect for the doctrines of the Church, guessing well that if he
had laid the tip of his finger on that sacred deposit the bishops
would have defied him, and laid their heads on the block
rather than capitulate oii the smallest point; but when he is-
sued a decree ordering them to send in their pastorals to be
overlooked by the prefect before being read to their flocks, it
never entered their heads to demur; at any rate they did not,

32 Life and Works of Frederk Ozanam.

alihough the tyranny was the more absurd ami offensive from
the fact of the prefect being frequently a Protestant, and still
oftener an athiest. The decree continued in force all through
the Consulate and under the Empire.*

Minute and stringent laws were enacted concerning reli-
gious institutions. No community of men or women, whether
for prayer, teaching, or the service of the sick and poor, could
be opened in France until the rules and statutes of the order
had been investigated and endorsed by Napoleon and Porta-
lis; and there is something cynically comic in the way the
lattei^, in his reports to the Emperor, discusses the purpose,
organization, utility, and dangers of the religious life, the first
elements of which were as familiar to him probably as the
household arrangements of the Grand Lama.

The Press, that other powerful engine in the State, was not
likely to be allowed more liberty than the Church. It was
gagged, and became a mere tool in the hands of the Gov-
ernment. The few journalists who refused the general tribute
of flattery and obsequiousness were dismissed from their posts,
their journals were suppressed or given into other hands.

The department of Public Instruction remained next to be
dealt with, and nothing could be more summary than the way
in which it was done. Every vestige of liberty which the
Revolution had spared was swept away. Under the Revolu-
tion and the Consulate the rights of parents at least were
respected ; the State opened schools, but it left parents free
to send their children there or not; secular and religious
schools had fair play from the Government, and were not
interfered with.f With the Empire all this was changed.
Liberty of teaching was so completely abolished that the
right of opening a school of any description, for any class of
scliolars, became the exclusive monopoly of the State. The
Imperial University was founded, and replaced all previous
institutions of the sort. Christian parents had to choose be*

• VEsUst Romaine et It premier E7nj>ire, par M. d'Haussonville, t. v. pp. 272-376
f See FoJsset's Life of Lacordaire, vol. i.

Life a fid Works of Frederic Ozanatn. 33

tween the privation of all education for their sons, or the
almost certain ruin of tlieir faith ; as a rule they adopted the
latter, and generally with the result foreseen. Let home train-
ing be ever so careful, it could not be expected to resist the
influence of tiie majority, of those imperious and sympathetic
tyrants, companions of their own age, who so powerfully sup-
plemented the teaching, direct and indirect, of Professors for
the most part infidels, and, at any rate, always chosen with-
out the slightest regard to their religious principles.

Such a system of education was in truth a sort of conscrip-
tion of souls, as arbitrary and far more fatal than those levies
en masse which the great captain was accustomed to raise for
the maintenance of his armies. The only possible remedy
for such a state of things would have been free competition,
and this was rigorously proscribed. By a decree of 1809, the
most obscure village school was compelled to choose between
suppression, or the official badge of the imperial schoolmas-
ter. The letters of M. de Lamennais to Brute show us what
a superfluity of zeal the Government thought it worth while
:o expend on hunting down a few humble village priests who
ventured to help some young Breton peasants in preparing
for the seminary by teaching them the rudiments of Latin.
These very seminaries, which the charity of the Church
opened to this humble class of students, were placed under
the control of the Imperial University, whose authority de-
cided the choice of the masters, and obliged the scholars to
follow the classes of the infidel Lyceums and Colleges.

The Empire went further still. It created purely civil
faculties of theology, with the right of conferring grades, the
possession of which was made a sine qua 7ion for obtaining
ecclesiastical dignities ; while the men who conferred these
grades were obliged to swear obedience to the Grand Master
of the University, M. de Fontanes — a wily and bold strata-
gem for transferring superior theological training from the
Church, where it naturally resides, into the hands of the Im-
perial University.

34 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

Napoleon writes to his Minister of Public Worship :* " A
priest who has never been under any other superintendence
than that of his ecclesiastical superiors cannot occupy a posi-
tion of the first rank unless the University confers it on him,
which it may decline to do in the event of his being known
to hold ultramontane opinions, or others dangerous to au-
thority."

So comprehensive a scheme of spiritual tyranny has no pre-
cedent in ancient or modern history, and yet this yoke was
borne by France all through the Empire, under the specious
pretext that it was the safeguard of national unity.

The department of morals fared no better than that of
dogma. Napoleon established divorce, thereby violently out-
raging the law of the Church. Portalis issued a decree for-
bidding priests to refuse the blessing of the Church to persons
who chose to marry again after being divorced.

The Sabbath was altered from the seventh day to the
tenthjt not perhaps so much as a measure of political econo-
my, as from Napoleon's desire to show his power to set aside
a time-honored law of Christendom. His efforts proved a
failure. It is still related in parts of France how the very
oxen resented the violation of the Divine law, and knew the
day of rest instinctively, moaning and lowing in expostulation
as they drew the plough reluctantly through the fields.

The story of the Concordat of Fontainebleau has been told
too often, and too exhaustively, to need more than passing
mention here. But we read history superficially, and too
often by the light of our own prejudices and the spirit of our
times; and many of us, in judging of this event, are apt to
overlook the main features of the case, the long series of
harassing persecutions that prepared it, the crafty system of
oppression, treachery, and humiliation which brought the
clergy of France into that state of unworthy subjection which
was the primary condition and prelude of the Concordat

• Ccrra^ondanct, torn. xiii. p. is, St. Cloud, 30 Juillet, tSofi.
t See Le;on Tme, suite du 4me Commandement.

IJfe and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 35

The old man at the Vatican was the beie noire of the man
who had brought all the crowned heads of Europe, except
one, to bow down to him. Napoleon hated him as Haman
hated Mordecai, for, like that stiff-necked Jew, who sat at the
gate in his rags, and defied the oppressor of his people, the
Pope remained the permanent affirmation of a power that de-
fied Caesar, and withstood alike his bribes and his threats.
Nothing had been left undone to bring this stubborn power
into subjection — caresses, bribes, insults, imprisonment, and
exile ; but so far everything had failed. Pius VII. had now
been four years a prisoner at Fontainebleau, his dominions
confiscated, his spiritual action virtually arrested, for he was
cut off from all external relations with the clergy and with
Christendom, and from the power of carrying on the govern-
ment of the Church. Napoleon governed it in France ac-
cording to his own views ; but he had now come to a diffi-
cult pass : death was thinning the ranks of the hierarchy, and
how was he to replenish them without the Pope ? He had
recourse to one of his characteristic expedients. He con-
voked an assembly of Italian and French bishops — " his
bishops " — in Paris, gave it the name of a National Council,
and ordered it forthwith to pass a decree, whereby, if the
Pope did not, within six months, institute a certain number of
bishops, named by the Emperor, they should be consecrated
by the Metropolitan.

The bishops, scared by the audacity of the order, sought to
gain time, and timidly proposed that they should draw up a
report on the imperial proposal, and refer the case by deputa-
tion to the august captive of Fontainebleau. Napoleon met
this act of rebellion by one of those paroxysms of imperial
anger which he had often found effective when other argu-
ments failed, and without condescending to further expostula-
tion, declared the National Council dissolved. Three of the
members were seized that night and carried off to Vincennes,
and detained there until they sent in their resignation of their
respective sees. The other bishops, before they had recov-

36 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

ered from the panic caused by this violent proceeding, were
summoned one by one into the presence of the Minister of
PoUce, and terrified into pledging themselves to deliver up the
hierarchy into the hands of their imperial master.

Napoleon, pacified by this act of submission, once more
convened his National Council, and this time the shameful
decree went through the mockery of a discussion, and was
passed.

It is alleged, in extenuation of the cowardly behavior of the
bishops, that they were told the Pope had yielded his assent;
but the monstrous falsehood never should, never could, have
imposed upon them for a moment ; their conscience, as well
as their experience, must have told them it was a lie and an
impossibility.

Pius VII. had been at this date four years in confinement,
cut off from every friendly face, from all knowledge of what-
ever was going on outside the walls of his prison, insulted,
threatened, subjected to every species of moral torture, until
at last the cruel skill prevailed. Broken in mind and in body,
led to believe that he was deserted by Christendom, betrayed
by the clergy and hierarchy, fascinated too, at intervals, by
the magnetic personal ascendency of Napoleon, moved more
by his caresses than his threats, the Pontiff signed the fatal
deed on the 25th of January, 1813.

The momentary aberration was quickly repented of and
disavowed, bift it remains an eternal example of the danger
which the Church must run when she forfeits her temporal in-
dependence, and is stripped of the protecting bulwarks of her
temporal power.

Napoleon thought that he had now compassed his long-
desired end, that he had henceforth nothing to fear from tlie
decrepit old Pontifif, or the cowed priesthood whom his weak-
ness had misled, and who were still ignorant of his prompt
and vehement recantation. The conqueror of Europe behdd

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 37

himself in spirit the centre of an apotheosis, wielduig the
sceptre over the souls as well as the bodies of all Christendom ;
he beheld the stern majesty of the Church of Rome prostrate
at his feet, as the Greek Church was at the feet of his brother
Caesar of Russia. What a serene and glorious pageant was
that which passed in fancy before the eyes of the great war-
rior, as he paced the green alleys of Fontainebleau, while close
by, within the palace walls, Pius VII. was weeping bitter,
penitent tears !

The partisans of Napoleon I. are proud of claiming for him
the gratitude of the Church of Christ. They say that became
and found her in the mire, a beggar and an outcast where she
had once been queen, and that he stretched forth his hand and
raised her up, and clotlied her in scarlet and gold, and placed
a crown upon her head. It is true he did all this, and then
he claimed his reward. It was not much, only the imme-
morial bargain of which Satan first pronounced the formula in
the desert outside Jerusalem nearly two thousand years ago —
si cadens adoraveris 7ne.

God's hour came ; Waterloo came. Napoleon fell, and the
Church of Christ remained. No wonder she hailed with
joy the return of the Bourbons to France. The restora-
tion appeared to her like the dawn of freedom and
dignity.

The Sabbath was passed into a law, bishops recovered the
direction of their seminaries, religious orders were encouraged
by the State ; in fact, religion was patronized in high places.
Many of the Ministers were sincere Catholics, and threw the
weight of their influence honestly into the effort at a general
reform amongst the people. To this effect missions were
opened in the towns and villages; there was preaching in the
market-places and in the fields ; processions were seen wind-
ing through the valleys as in olden times; pilgrims journeyed
to distant shrines, and filled the forest glades with the long-
forgotten sound of hymns and canticles. The reign of faith
was restored to France, and seemed enthroned more fervently

38 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanatti.

than ever in the hearts of her people. So it seemed ; but it
was not so in reality.

There was no doubt a good deal of sincere individual piety
in all these demonstrations, but, as regarded the general re-
sult, the movement was an utter failure. Nor can we wonder
at this. The Revolution had destroyed and profaned the old
temples, and done its best to crush every spark of faith out of
the country, and if the work of annihilation had not been
complete it was universal and tremendous. Napoleon,
emerging at this period of social chaos, had judged it advis-
able to curb the lawless infidelity of the nation by imposing
on it a State religi'on. The yoke had been accepted out-
wardly; but despotism makes few converts — it makes hypo-
crites instead ; and in the present instance, not being rein-
forced by the sanguinary orthodoxy of the Inquisition, it
merely engendered corruption and a cynical contempt of all
religion. The people were not to be driven by law into keep-
ing the commandments and obeying the precepts of the
Church because the Emperor decreed they were to do so.
The old edifice was sapped to its foundation, and it must take
more than a nod from Caesar to rebuild it.

When, therefore, Loaiis XVIII. inserted a bona fide clause
in his charter constituting the kingdom Catholic, the kingdom
laughed — laughed in defiance and derision. Whatever tlie
faults of the French are, hypocrisy never was one of them ;
and to be thus officially labelled as members of a Church
which they had ceased to believe in, roused all that remained
of native honesty and independence in the national mind.
It had taken more than a generation to make them atheists
and sceptics, and it was not to be expected they would now
:urn Christians at the bidding of a State paper. The efibrts
of the Government to bring about such a result only irritated
and aggravated the existing evil by provoking a spirit of
direct antagon-ism.

For instance, it had taken years to wean the working
classes from the routine observance of the Sabbath, but hav-

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 39

ing finally broken with the habit, they had no n>ind to take it
up again ; they had grown used to open their shops on Sun-
days, and it required the constant and active intervention of
the law to make them close them ; even at the present day,
as we all know, this reform remains a struggle in which the
^fjC Ffliuiii Commandment is but partially triumphant. The
'hf Catechism of 1793, written in the blood of their murdered king,
and enforced by the guillotine, had taught the people hatred
of all constituted authority, and this hatred was more specially
directed to the highest expression of authority on earth. They
had seen the Church thrown down, and trampled under foot
by anarchy, then picked up to serve as an instrument in the
hands of despotism ; she had lost all prestige in their eyes,
and become the symbol of a despised and fallen re'gime, the
wreck of a pov/er whose day had passed to give way to the
day of Voltaire. The reign of Voltaire had succeeded to the
reign of Christ. So long, however, as this succession was
tacitly admitted, the zeal of the worshippers was slack enough \
but no sooner did a Christian Government appear, and an-
nounce its intention of reinstating the Gospel in its lost su-
premacy, than the smouldering zeal of the Voltairians leaped
out in a flame. Voltaire's works had not been reprinted once
under the Empire, but from 181 7 to 1824 no less than twelve
fresh editions were called for and exhausted in France. Na-
poleon had given back to divine worship the churches which
the Revolution had taken from it ; but it was one thing to
restore churches, and another to restore the faith that had
worshipped there; so it was easy now to throw down Vol-
taire's statues, and to cast out his unhallowed dust from
beneath the consecrated altar of the living God, but it was
another thing to overturn his empire in hearts from which his
presence had banished the reign of " the Galilean,"

The restoration opened schools, and paid Christian teach-
ers, but it could not provide docile pupils to attend them ;
the children of men who used up twelve editions of Voltaire
in eight years were not likely to prove willing listeners to

40 Life and Works of Fininu Ozanam.

masters who cried anathema on Voltaire and his doctrines ;
they liad imbibed a spirit which was instinctively hostile to
the spirit of the Gospel; they were thirsting for other lessons.

But although undoubtedly this was the general rule, it was
redeemed by exceptions. The old tree had been stricken, but
there was life in its roots still, and the sap was rising through
the seared branches, and putting forth young shoots here and
there. Amidst the youth born of this period, there were
many who thirsted for purer and stronger waters than those
poisoned ones from which their f^ithers had drunk ; there were
seeds of fiery activity in their natures, which only required to
be fostered by the right guide in order to bring forth good
fruit. Men cannot summon these guides to their own rescue,
but G ul, who loves His creatures, and iioMs the thread of
their destinies, even when they stray from Him, can and
often mercifully does. He never leaves Himself without a
witness on the earth, although at times it seems as though He
dill, as if He abandoned humanity to its own perverse and
wayward folly, letting falsehood prevail and truth perish, but
in His own appointed time He comes forth and produces His
witness to exalt the one and confound the other.

Those who have made any serious study of the state of
society in France at the period when Frederic Ozanam, in
his capacity of a Christian teacher, first appeared on its scene,
will hardly tax us with exaggeration if we claim for him the
grave and bright responsibility of having been in his sphere
one of tliese witnesses of God to his generation. He iiimself
was, as we have seen, early imbued with the idea that some
special mission would be confided to him ; that he would at
a given time be employed in the defence of truth. This
dominant idea permeates his whole mind, and recurs fre-
(^uently in his letters during his sojourn at M. Ampere's, and
he never ceases to urge his fellow-students to aspire to the
same glorious mission, and prepare themselves to accomplish
it worthily.

CHAPTER IV.
1832.

Few things in the condition of society in France during
the years which followed tlie revolution of 1830 were more
remarkable and more dispiriting than the apathy which per-
vaded all classes. Indeed, the sound portion of society, tlie
party of order, as they have come to be called, have at all
times displayed, in the strongest degree, this criminal weak-
ness ; whenever a crisis comes, they collapse ; resignation
and passive endurance become the practical epitome of
tlieir creed ; they lie down and let the communists of the
hour walk over them.

When Ozanani came to Paris, the department of Public
Instruction still showed signs of this fatal inertia, which had
deadened it under the Empire, when open hostility to reli-
gion and morals had given way to sleek oppression and an
outward varnish of respect as offensive as it was paralyzing.

The Restoration had inaugurated a new era, but the
energy to profit by it was wanting; indifference and the
laisser-alkr spirit had become a rooted habit in men's minds,
and was not to be cured in a day.

These periods of coma are the grand opportunity of false
prophets and founders of new religions ; then it is that they
stand forth and call around them the restless spirits who,
im])atient at the general stagnation, chafe under the dead
weight, and burn to find an oudet for their pent-up
energies. The Abb6 de Lamennais was the great false pro-
phet of this period. Partly the creation, partly the reaction
of the spirit of his times, he responded fully to its cry, and

41

42 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

took a hold upon the sympathies of his fellow-men unparal-
leled perhaps in the history of similar influences.

Before this bright misleading star had risen, the St, Simo-
nians were in the field, promising to lead humanity to the
second earthly Paradise, attracting great numbers of the
young by their specious and brilliant theories.

Frederic Ozanam had drawn his maiden sword against
them, as we saw, and with considerable local effect; but the
ranks of the St. Simonians were growing. He saw this in
Paris better than he could have done at Lyons. The various
classes which he attended bore evidence to the necessity for
some counteracting force to stem the torrent of absurd and
impious doctrines which poured out daily from these foun-
tains where the young generation came to drink. Frederic
was fond of relating an incident connected with the lectures
at the College de France. M. Letrone, the Professor, was
lecturing on the Deluge, and was at great pains to prove
that the story of the universal flood was a popular fallacy;
there had not been one great, but several smaller deluges, at
different epochs and in different places. This theory, besides
its novelty, had the immense advantage of throwing discredit
on the " legend of Genesis," if it could be maintained.
The audience listened with profound attention, but Ozanam
could not conceal his impatience. A young man named
Lallier noticed the angry glances and expressive shrugs in
which he vented his feelings at every fresh absurdity pro-
pounded by the learned Professor. M, Lallier, who, for the
same reason as Frederic, had kept aloof from companions
of his own age in Paris, determined, as soon as the lecture
was over, to go and make acquaintance with him, Ozanam
however, left before the end of it, and the opportunity was
lost. Several weeks elapsed before they met again ; it was
at a lecture of the Abbe Gerbet's. On issuing from the
room, Frederic was at once surrounded by a group of stu-
dents, who were discussing with great animation the ideas
set forth by the lecturer; M. Lallier went up and spoke to

Life and Works of Frederic Czajiam. 43

him, and it was not long before the chance acquaintance
ripened to a friendship which lasted without a cloud unlil
Ozanam's death.

The number of Catholic young men was thus augmenting
in the various classes, or it might be more accurate to say
they were finding each other out, and, gathering courage
from union, were liolding up their heads more boldly. Fear
of public opinion, that plague of religion and morality in
France, had held many back from avowing themselves Ca-
tholics, because they fancied they were alone. One young
student, who had often seen Ozanam at the Ecole de Droit,
and been attracted by his quiet diligence and the kindly
charm of his manner, but had never ventured to seek his
acquaintance, met him one day coming out of St. Etienne
du Mont. " What !" he exclaimed, " are you a Catholic ?
How glad I am ; let us be friends ; I thought you were an
atheist !"

The following incident is also significant. These two
young students, in company with a third, went one day to
attend a sermon in one of the largest churches in Paris.
They arrived late, and found every seat taken. Ozanam and
his friend at last secured places, but their companion, after
elbowing his way up to the pulpit, could only find standing-
room, and there he remained. He was six feet high, and
otherwise of a striking appearance, so that the cure, who was
seated with his clergy in the ba7ic-d^ceuvre opposite, noticed
him, and, taking for granted that he was standing there out
of disrespect, rose and publicly rebuked him, adding, "Your
attitude shows' that you are more accustomed to frequent the
theatre than the church." The young man blushed deeply,
but held his ground until the sermon was over, when he
went to the sacristy and had an explanation with the cure.
The latter, as may be imagined, was greatly distressed at his
mistake, but, after making an ample apology, remarked,
" We so seldom see a young man in our churches, except it
be, as I said, from a bad motive — to mock or criticise — that it

44 Life and Works of Frederu Ozanam.

never occurred to me you were an exception to the rule."
The exceptions, however, were increasing notably. Frederic
had been little more than a year in Pans when he writes to
Ernest Falconnet :

"We are more numerous than we thought. I have met here with young
men strong in intellectual vigor, and rich in generous sentiments, who devote
their thoughts and researches to the high mission which is also yours and
mine. Ever}' time a rationalist Professor raises his voice against Revelation,
Catholic voices are lifted up to answer him. We have, several of us, banded
together for this purpose. Twice already I have taken my share of this noble
work by addressing my objections in writing to these gentlemen. \\''e have
had our chief success at X.'s class. Twice he attacked the Church, first by
treating the Papacy as a temporary institution, bom under Charlemagne, and
now dying out, and the next time in accusing the clergy of having at all times
favored despotism. Our answers were publicly read, and produced the best
effect, both on the Professor, who as good as retracted his words, and on the
audience, who applauded. The most useful result of all this is that it enables
us to show the students of the present day that one may be a Catltolic and have
comtnon sense, that one may love liberty and religion at tlie same time ; also it
stirs them up from their fatal religious indifference, and accustoms them to
grave and earnest discussion.

" But the most interesting and consoling thing of all for us young Christians
are the ' Conferences' which have been undertaken, at our request, by the
Abbe Gerbet. Now we may say with truth that light shines in the darkness,
— Lux in tenebris liicet. Every fortnight we have a lecture on philosophy and
history ; nowhere does language more penetrating, or doctrine more profound,
resound in our ears.

" The system of Lamennais, as expounded by him, is no longer that of his
provincial partisans ; it is the immortal alliance of faith and science, of charity
and industry, of power and liberty."

A more serious passage of arms occurred between the two
parties a few weeks later.

TO HIS COUSIN FALCONNET.

"The chair of Philosophy at the Sorbonne was the battle-field. Professor
JoufFroy, one of the most illustrious rationalists of our day, thought fit to
attack Revelation, the very possibility of Revelation. A young man, a Ca-
tholic, addressed some remarks to him in writing, to which the philosopher
promised to reply. He waited fifteen days, to get ready his weapons no doubt,
and then, without reading the letter, he just made a sort of analysis of it, and
tried to refute it after his own fashion. The Catholic student, seeing that he
was misunderstood, sent a second letter to the Professor, who this time took
no notice of it, but continued his attacks, protesting that Catholicism repudi-
ated both science and liberty, Thereupon wc all met and drew up a protest

Life atid Works of Frederic Ozanam. 45

which embodied our real sentiments ; it was signed hastily by fifteen studects,
and addressed to M. Jouffroy. This he could not avoid reading. The au-
dience, composed of over 200 persons, listened with respect to our profession
of faith. The philosopher hummed and hawed, confounded himself in apolo-
gies, declared that he never meant to attack Christianity in particular, which
he held, on the contrary, in the highest veneration, and promised to endeavor
for the future not to wound the belief of any of his Catholic hearers. But
above all, he mentioned a fact which is most significant, and most encouraging
for our times : ' Gentlemen,' he said, ' five years ago all the objections sent
in to me were dictated by materialism ; spiritualistic doctrines met with the
fiercest resistance ; to-day this feeling is greatly altered : the opposition has
become quite CathoHc' It is sad to see him struggling to solve the problem
of human destinies by the mere force of reason ; the most absurd inconsisten-
cies and contradictory admissions escape him everj' day. Lately he declared
it was false that the righteous were ever unhappy, or that the wicked were
ever spared in this world. Yesterday he confessed that the cravings of the
intellect are insatiable, that science, far from satisfying them, only serves to
discover their boundlessness, and leads man to despair by showing him the
impossibility of ever reaching perfection.

" He admitted that material knowledge did not suffice to our minds, and
that after exhausting it the void remained, and he himself felt impelled to
seek for supernatural light. My dear friend, one must pity them, these poor
philosophers of rationalism ! If you could but hear their e.\travagant propo-
sitions and their stupid attacks on Christianity, mere servile declamations
from Voltaire, always on the same key ; if you could hear one of them, for
instance, tr>ing to explain away miracles by asserting that, the laws of nature
being beyond our reach, we cannot appreciate their derogations, and that tiie
resurrection of a dead man would present nothing miraculous to a savant of
our day ! — if )-ou could but hear all this, would you not congratulate Chris-
tianity on having such adversaries ?

" Let us cheer up ; our enemies are weak ; these fine doctors of incredulity
could be worsted by the simplest of our village priests : let us cheer up, I say,
for the work of God is advancing, and will be accomplished by the youth of
this very day ; who knows ? perhaps even by you and me !"

The zeal and ability which the growing group of young
Catholics displayed in the service of truth certainly justified
this sanguine expectation. Frederic was as yet far from real-
izing that he was himself the mainspring of the movement,
yet such was already the case. From this time forward a no-
table change was observed in the tone of the Professors of
the Sorbonne ; their teaching continued as radically anti-
Christian as before, but they were more guarded in their la,n-
^uage, more considerate for the feelings of the Christian per.

46 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

tion of their audience. This change was attributed by every
one to young Ozanam's influence. He modestly speaks of
the able letter which had been written to M. Joufifroy as " a
protest which we drew up," but it was in reality entirely his
work, and displayed an amount of scientific and historical
knowledge which showed the infidel philosopher that Chris-
tianity would defend herself with those very weapons which
he and his school fancied were their own exclusive possession.

CHAPTER V.

1833.

Frederic's residence with M. Ampere was an advantage
to him in many ways. The patriarch of mathematicians, as
he was styled, soon conceived a fatherly affection for his
young guest, and yielded to his virtues and talents that gen-
erous tribute of admiration which true greatness so readily
pays to both. He liked nothing better than to call Frederic
into his study, and converse with him by the hour on philoso-
phy and science ; he frequently solicited his assistance at his
work, and long treatises on scientific subjects are still pre-
served written half by one and half by the other. Even after
Frederic had left him, on the return of his son from Germany,
and gone to live in chambers, M. Ampere constantly sent to beg
his help in some urgent and difficult work. Once, when he had
only a few days to remain in Paris for the completion of a plan
for the classification of sciences, to which he attached great
importance, he writes to the hard-worked student — " Come,
I entreat you, for the sake of all the friendship you bear me;
there is not a moment to lose, if you will not deprive me of a
thing to which I attach immense interest." M. Ampere used
to say that if Ozanam had devoted himself exclusively to sci-
ence he would have been the first mathematician of his age.
There can be no doubt but that his literary power was greatly
strengthened by the scientific knowledge which he acquired,
almost by contagion, from M. Ampdre. He had always a
great horror of becoming simply a man of letters, and nothing
else ; a man whose mind only worked in one way and on one
subject like a machine. While still a mere boy he felt that
true instinct of genius which rebels against a groove, and
longs for space. He began very early to plough up his mind

47

48 Life and Works of Fi-ederic Ozanam.

in every direction, and sow a variety of seeds in order that he
might reap many and various crops. Science proved a valu-
able helpmate to him ; he owed to it, probably, in a great
measure his sheer inability to treat any subject superficially.
He loved it, too, for its own sake, because it opened out to
him resources in every part of nature, revealing secrets which
literature cannot discover, but only describe ; because it fur-
nished him with contrasts and comparisons of endless variety
and beauty, and was unconsciously educating him to be deep,
philosophical, and harmonious as a writer. Sometimes in
these intimate conversations, the sense of the mysteries and
beauties of nature which M. Ampere's own remarks or re-
searches suggested would throw the Christian savant into a sud-
den ecstasy of admiration and reverent self-abasement. Many
a time he would break off abruptly in what he was explaining
or investigating, and burying his great white head in his hands
cry out like one overpowered by some high presence, " Oh
how great God is, Ozanam ! how great God is !"

The example of the old man's string and simple faith was
a constant lesson, and sometimes a great support to Frederic.
His own faith was sound and fervent, but it was not proof
against those intervals of dccouragement^- and occasional
sinkings of the heart which are consistent with the firmest
intellectual belief. He was all his life a sufferer from botli,
and now, overdriven as he was by work, weary sometimes of
the sustained effort which seemed to bring such little result,
while all around him egotism and infidelity were prosperous
and rampant, he was occasionally assailed by a feeling of
bitterness, almost of resentment, against the faith which ruled
his soul, but which was slow to repay the constant sacrifice
it demanded. One day, while a prey to this feeling, he went
out, and, walking in the direction of St. Etienne du Mont,
turned in, more from routine, or some unconscious impulse,
than from any deliberate prompting of piety ; he advanced

•The word has no exact equivalent in English. " Low spirits " will not do, as a man inay bn
kt high spirits and yet trh diconrag^i.

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanarn. 49

mechanically towards a favorite shrine, where, as usual, a
group of humble worshippers, women and children for the
most part, were collected, and there kneeling in the midst of
them, in an attitude of rapt devotion, he beheld M. Ampere.
The sight, the lesson it conveyed, went straight to the young
man's heart; he burst into tears, and falling on his knees,
repented of having harbored, even in passing, a disloyal
thought toward that faith before whose sublimest mystery his
great and venerable master knelt in lowly and joyous adora-
tion.

This tendency to decouragement, which remained all his
life a source of keen sutfering to Frederic, doubtless in some
degree resulted from physical conditions, from a health
naturally delicate, and which, from his earliest years, he
had pitilessly overtaxed ; but it may be still more regarded
as part of the price which most men pay for high mental and
spiritual gifts. As life went on, decouragemeiit became in him
a kind of self-weariness, a profound recoil from self, the
natural result of that ceaseless inward strife which, with the
help of grace, he was carrying on, and also of his finely dis-
ciplined nature. The sense of failure in the life-long unsur-
rendering battle did not disturb the harmony of his mind ;
the sadness it engendered was of that noble kind which, in
pure and compassionate souls, grows out of the experience of
life, and pours itself out in pity ; it never turned sour, like
that of a disappointed man who vents his bitterness in hatred
and sterile denunciations, and too often lapses from sheer
despair of mankind into unworthy self-betrayal. Ozanam's
fault was, on the contrary, to believe too much in his fellow-
creatures, to attribute virtue and goodness to them instinc-
tively, and to lay the responsibility of their follies and crimes
too exclusively at the door of that abstract criminal called
Society. He reserved his severest denunciations for himself,
and he is unsparing enough of them. Alluding to this very
subject oi de'couragement, he gives the following explanation
of it : '* There are two sorts of pride , one is satisfied with

go Life and Works of Frederic Ozanarn.

self: this is the commonest and the least bad. The other is
discontented, because it expects great things from self, and is
disappointed. This latter kind, the most refined and by far
the most dangerous, is mine." Great minds are commonly
humble ones; for humility is, after all, but a clear, compre-
hensive view of the gulf that divides self, as we are supposed
to see it — as the Christian, or even the philosopher, sees it —
from the ideal self that we are aiming at. The grandest
minds are apt to realize this best, as the finest natures are
sure to suffer most from the sense of failure, in virtue of their
finer sympathies and higher aspirations.

At an age when the steadiest boys are thinking chiefly of
their amusements, Frederic Ozanam was brooding over the
miseries and wants of his time, suffering from them as those
do who love the sufferers too well to take refuge in indiffer-
ence or callous despair. " We must do something, but what
can we do ? " was his constant cry ; and this anxiety as to
his vocation preyed upon him, and was made a matter of
ardent prayer. A career was not in his eyes a mere means
of livelihood or honorable labor. He realized, as iQ\s men
do at the outset of life, that every Christian has his work ap-
pointed in the scheme of Divine Providence, and that though
we are free to reject the ordinance, we are not free to escape
the consequences of our rejection. He still maintained the
same indifference as to the exact nature and sphere of his
work. It was immaterial to him whether it cast him in what
the world calls a brilliant position, or left him hidden in
some obscure corner. His one anxiety was to be where God
wished him to be. This conscious purity of intention and
sincere conformity to the Divine will did not, however, ])re-
vent him from feeling that natural anxiety concerning the
future which his circumstances suggested; but he strove with
all his might against it.

" How often have I*\vished beforehand to build the edifice of my own life,"
he says to Falconnet, " jjathering up in fancy all that seemed to me best cal-
culated to make it beautiful and grand from my childish school-days, when I

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 51

dreamt in Latin verses, until now, when I dream of so many other things.
You remember those endless conversations in our walks together, when we
Osed to talk over the things we were to accomplish some day.

" Poor mortals that we are, we cannot tell whether we shall eVer see to-
morrow, and we want to settle what we will do in twenty years hence ! We
know not what we are capable of doing, or what is for our happiness, and we
want to trace out a road for the development of faculties whose very exist-
ence we are not sure of, in order to attain to a happiness which is a myster)' to
us. Besides, think of this : of what use is it to know beforehand what we are
to do, except in order to do it well ? What is the use of knowing our destina-
tion unless it be to accomplish it .> What good is it to see our way except to
walk ? Provided, then, that the traveller sees ten steps before him, will he
not arrive as surely as if he saw to the end of the road ? Provided that the
workman knows every hour of the day the task he has to perform the next
hour, will he not arrive as well at the end of his work as if he had the com-
plete plan of the architect before his eyes ? And does it not suffice for us to
know our duty and our destiny for the nearest point of the future, without
seeking to peer beyond it into the infinite ? Is it not enough for us to know
what God appoints for us to-morrow, without troubling ourselves about what
He may command us to do ten years hence, since between this and then He
may call us to our rest ? I don't mean by this that we should be careless or
lazy in following a vocation clearly pointed out, but I mean that we ought to
content ourselves with knowing a portion of it, and pursue that calmly and
bravely, and not worry ourselves about the rest that is hidden from us. The
uncertainty of human things should not unnerve our courage or damp our ac-
tivity ; on the contrary, it should attach us more firmly to our duty in the pre-
sent, because of our ignorance of the future. We should find great peace if
we could imbue ourselves with this thought, that we are here solely to accom-
plish the will of God ; that that will is accomplished from day to day ; and
that he who dies leaving his task unfinished, is just as far advanced in the
eyes of supreme justice as he who has leisure to accomplish it fully ; that
man can no more create his moral being than his physical ; that we cannot
make ourselves artists, poets, orators, men of genius, but that we become
such little by little, and insensibly, by God's leading. The greatest men are
those who never planned their own destinies beforehand, but let themselves
be taken by the hand and led." /■

The holidays of this year, 1833, were spent in a journey to
Italy. Mme. Ozanam accompanied her husband and sons as
far as Florence, and there they parted, she remaining with a
married sister, while the others went on to Rome, Naples,
Milan, Loreto, etc. Frederic had from his childhood shown
a keen sense of the beauties of nature, yet, strange to say, this
feeling, which was developed in so high a degree later, does
not seem to have been strongly called out by this enchanting

5 2 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

tour; his letters during the course of it show little trace of
enthusiasm in this respect, while every page bears witness to
his delight in the beauties of art which meet him at every
>^ep ; he is in raptures with the poetry of the land of Tassa
and Petrarch, but the feeling which transcends all others is his
sympathy with the philosophical idea everywhere embodied
in art and nature ; this penetrates and absorbs him to the ex-
clusion, comparatively speaking, of all other studies and con-
templations. Dante is the ideal impersonation of this phi-
losophy, and Ozanam falls a pfey to the spell which the semi*
divine poet has for centuries cast upon so many lofty and im-
passioned souls. Recalling the precise spot where this spell
was first cast upon him, he writes, many years afterwards :

"When, after accomplishing a pilgrimage long dreamed of, you visit
Rome for the first time, and with a thrill of reverent curiosity ascend
the grand staircase of the Vatican, and behold the wonders of every age
and country united in the hospitality of that magnificent abode, you come at
last to a spot which may be called the sanctuary of Christian art — the cham-
bers of Raphael."

Here, in presence of that immortal masterpiece, the Dis-
pute on the Blessed Sacrament, he is seized with enthusiastic
admiration; but what strikes him first, what impresses hiro
above everything else, is the laurel-crowned figure of Dante.
How came the Florentine poet to stand thus amidst the most
venerable and accredited defenders of the Divine mystery ?
This question takes hold of Ozanam, and leaves him no peace
until he has worked out its solution, as we shall see.

CHAPTER VI.

/he requirements of the young Catholic party grew witli
tKuir numbers, and they soon began to feel the want of a
meeting-place where they could coalesce and discuss their
plan of action. This primary want was unexpectedly sup-
plied by M. Bailly. M. Bailly, or the P^re Bailly, as the
affectionate familiarity of his young friends had nicknamed
hini, was a worthy old gentleman, the proprietor of a printing
sstablishment and a newspaper, who received into his house a
certain number of young men studying for their drcnf. His
newspaper, the Tribu7ie Catholique, was a remarkable institu-
tion ; it had no subscribers to speak of, but appeared regular-
ly three times a week, and was sent gratis to everybody who
would read it. It had been founded in 1828, under the name
of the Correspondant^ and soon became the recognized organ
of Catholicism, and continued so until 1830, when M. de
Lamennais came to Paris and founded the Avetiir^ which kill-
ed it. M. Bailly, foreseeing this result, had advised M. de
Lamennais to take up the Correspofidattt and graft his new
journal upon it, instead of founding an original one ; but M.
de Lamennais declined the oflFer. He started the Aveiiir^ and
almost immediately the Correspondant died. M. Bailly soon
saw, however, that the success of the brilliant new journal
represented a danger more to be deplored than the fall of his
own paper, and that it was absolutely necessary to oppose a
breakwater of some sort to the extreme doctrines which were
pouring out from the Avetiir, with the bewildering force and
beauty of a mountain-torrent let loose. Accordingly, in 1831,
he started the Tribune CatJwlique, which, like its predecessor,
appeared every second day, and went gratis to everybody who

S3

54 I'ifi <i^<i Works of Frederic Ozanam.

would read it. M. Bailly composed the whole of it himself;
politics, literature, news, reviews, all issued from his indefatiga-
ble pen, supplemented occasionally by an article from one of
his pupils, who were proud to contribute in the measure of
their ability to the heroic newspaper.

The desire to give these young men an occupation which
would be exciting, and at the same time useful — which would
keep them at home of an evening, and furnish them with
interesting and wholesome subjects of discussion — had had its
share in P^re Bailly's motives for founding the Tribune Ca-
tholique. While, however, rendering full justice to his disin-
terestedness, and that keen sympathy with the young, with
their aspirations, efforts, and special temptations, which made
them delight in his society, we must not lose sight of the fact
that M. Bailly was the proprietor of a printing-press, and that
his enterprise, if it brought him dubious profits, involved but
little or no pecuniary risk. He and the Tribune CatJiolique
lived at No. 7 Rue du Petit Bourbon St. Sulpice, and here it
was, in the spacious office of the newspaper, that he proposed
Ozanam and his friends should assemble once a week, and
after hearing a lecture from him on history and rhetoric, the
improvised class-room should be turned into a debating-hall,
and the students should hold forth amongst themselves.

M. Bailly's first idea had been to admit none but Catholics
as members, but he soon saw that this would not do. In the
first place, the Catholics were too few and too scattered, and
in the next place, if the members were all of one mind, the
debates would die of inanition; it was absolutely necessary to
feed them by introducing an element of contradiction. So
the barrier receded, and the circle soon extended indefinitely.
Voltairians and Fourierists, Rationalists and St. Simonians,
Greeks, Parthians, and dwellers in Mesopotamia, flocked in,
and the debates became proportionally lively and interesting.
After a while, they became so popular that the offices of the
TVibune Catholique could hold the crowd no longer. P^re
Bailly again came to the rescue by transferring the field of

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam, gr

battle from his own premises to a spacious hall in the Plac<
de I'Estrapade, which had formerly belonged to the Bonnes
Etudes, a society founded in 1811 for literary and scientific
studies, and whose members contracted a special obligation
to help each other to get on in the world. This society had
been suppressed by the Revolution. M. Bailly continued to
give his weekly lectures gratis as heretofore, and, besides this,
paid the rent of the place and all the expenses connected with
it ; he was a poor man, but whenever there was a service to
be rendered to the cause of truth, or to the young, he contriv-
ed somehow to find the necessary means.

The scope and power of the young debaters seemed to
widen with their enlarged space. The polemics on both sides,
the Christian and the anti-Christian, became so earnest that
the combatants had to devote all the time they could steal
from their regular studies to preparing answers and attacks.
The popularity of the St. Simonians, which had been at its
culminating point only a little while before, had suddenly
wavered, and was now on the decline; but they had still
great influence, and some of their leaders were amongst the
most prominent of the debaters. They were, moreover, gen-
erally the aggressors, and this gave them the advantage of
arriving in the field with their speeches prepared ; whereas the
attacked party had to answer impromptu, and thus, from not
being ready with chapter and verse to prove the fallacy of an
argument or the error of a statement, were sometimes appar-
ently worsted in the fight. Ozanam, as the recognized leader
of the Christian party, took a foremost part in the debates,
and displayed here, for the first time in public, that impas-
sioned and sympathetic eloquence which was later to win him
such brilliant triumphs at the Sorbonne. There was also a
sort of legal club, where the students played at judge and
counsel, which seems to have been very amusing, as well as
instructive. Frederic was one day called upon, at an hour's
notice, to supply the place of attorney-general in a heavy
ftnd complicated case ; and though he acquitted himself to

56 Life and Works of Frcdmc Ozanam.

the signal approval of the court, he was apparently less satis-
fied with the result himself.

" I felt nervous and weak," he says to Falconnet, " because I was not su£&-
ciently master of my subject " ; and then, going on to speak of the other de-
bates, he says, " But the historical debates are quite another thing ; we meet
every Saturday, and there it is an ojjen field — historj-, philosophy, literature,
everything has free play. The doors are open to all opinions, and this results
in the liveliest emulation. Then every composition, after it has been read, is
handed over to a committee, which criticises it, dissects it, and names a re-
porter, who is to be its organ before the meeting ; nothing escapes the sever-
ity of this censorship : it goes into the most minute details, and exercises i
control that is sometimes exceedingly amusing. Lastly, a superior committee
is established to give one general impulse to the whole conference, to point out
means of advancement, to draw up the general reports, and testify to the re-
sults of the common work. There have been some most interesting disserta-
tions, and some charming pieces of poetry ; six or seven compositions are
read at each sitting.''

Frederic had a sincere love of poetry, which he always con-
sidered a vital element in intellectual, almost in moral cul-
ture.

"We want something that will take hold of us and transport us," he says,
' something that will at once possess and elevate our tlioughts. We have
need of poetry in the midst of the cold, prosaic world where we live, and, at
the same time, of philosophy, which will give a reality to our ideal concep-
tions. This twofold benefit we find in Catholicism, to which, for our greater
happiness, we are bound. Here then is the starting-point of all our intellec-
tual labors, as well as the cream of our imagination ; here is the central point
to which they should all converge."

This ever-recurring burden of his song, love of the faith,
and steady, persevering efforts in its service, begins henceforth
to shape itself into a more definite purpose.

"You know," he says, "'what the great object of my desires was before
leaving Lyons. You know that I yearned to form a reunion of friends work-
ing together at tJie edifice of science, under t/ie fag of Catholic ideas. This
desire remained sterile for a long time, until at last a friend opened to me the
door of a small literary assembly, the last plank of what was once the Societe
des Bonnes Etudes, and where the want of scientific thought and study al-
most precluded philosophy and serious research. We assembled in a small
room ; fifteen students, at most, were faithful to the rendezvous, and the
great questions of the past and future were scarcely touched upon. Thanks,
however, to the zeal of a few, the little society has increased in a wonderful
oianner ; it numbers to-day sixty members, raany of whom bear names not

lAfe and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 57

unknown to fame : a numerous audience is present at our meetings, and
the large hall is filled to overflowing. We were obliged to make certain severe
conditions for the admission of candidates, but nevertheless they continue to
multiply, and we recruit daily 30ung men of superior ability. Some of them
are precocious travellers, who have visited various parts of Europe ; one even
has been round the world ; some have gone deeply into the theories of art ;
others have sounded the problems of political economy ; the greater number are
devoted to the study of historj", and a few to philosophy. We have even two
or three of those chosen spirits to whom God has given wings, and who will
one day be poets, if death or the storms of life do not break them on the way.
The noisy domain of politics is closed to our discussions, but in every other
respect we have entire liberty. From day to day grav? questions are mooted ;
young philosophers come for\vard, and summon Catholicism to render an ac-
count of its doctrines and its works, and then, seizing the inspiration of the
moment, one of us stands up and meets the attack, explains the Christian
idea which is misunderstood, appeals to history for proofs of its application,
and not unfrequently, warmed on to eloquence by the grandeur of the subjea,
establishes, on a solid basis, the immortal union of true philosophy with faith.
Needless to say, it is not theological propositions which are thus dealt with,
but merely the scientific and social bearing of the Gospel. The lists are open,
and opinions of every shade may ascend the tribune. As, however, the Chris-
tians are equal in numbers to their adversaries, and as, on the other hand,
they are animated by more order, zeal, and assiduity, it is nearly always in
their favor that the victory is decided. I must add, that the frankest cordial-
ity reigns amongst us, a sort of real fraternity ; with the others we are on
terms of courtesy and good-will. There are about ten of us Catholics united
ia a closer union of heart and mind, a sort of literary knighthood, all devoted
friends, without any secrets from one another, but who share all, heart to
heart, in common joys, hopes, and sorrows.

" Sometimes, when the air is balmy and the night-breeze soft, and the
moonbeams are lighting up the majestic dome of the Pantheon, that grand
edifice which seems about to lift itself to the skies, and whose summit has
been robbed of the cross, as if to break the impetus of its upward flight —
sometimes, I say, the sergent-de-ville stops on his beat to cast an unquiet eye
on six or seven young men, who, arm-in-arm, promenade for hours together
in the silent, deserted square. Their countenance is serene, their gait mea-
sured, their conversation full of enthusiasm, of sensibility and gladness.
They discourse concerning many things on earth and in Heaven ; they speak
of God, of their fathers, of friends whom they have left at the old fire-
side ; they speak of their country, and of humanity. The stupid Parisian
who elbows them as he hurries on to his pleasures does not understand their
language; it is a dead language which few here understand. I, who was
with them, understood it, and, as I listened to them, I seemed to feel my
heart expand ; I felt myself a man, and, weak and cowardly as I am, I drew
from my contact with them some moments of energy for the morrow's work.
Another source of life to us are the soirees of the young and gifted Cotmt de
Montaleipbert ; there the most illustrious champions of Catholicism open t^

58 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

us the rich stores of their conversation. Some are to be seen there who have
fought with the sword, and sealed their convictions with their blood r there
are young Polish and Belgian officers, and distinguished diplomatists ; then
there are men of another school, who come like pilgrims from another
empire to contemplate for a moment the spirit of union and gentleness which
reigns amongst their adversaries ; there in turns you meet MM. Ballanche
and Sainte-Beuve, Savigny the younger and Beauffort, Ampere fils and
Alfred de Vigny, de Mero and d'Ecstein. Last Sunday Lherminier was
there. I even chatted a moment with him ; then a most interesting conver-
sation was started between him and M. de Montalembert ; we stayed till mid-
night listening to them. Victor Considerant was there also ; a great deal
was said about the misery of the people just now ; it is considered a very sad
omen for the future. But we talk politics very little, and science, on the
other hand, a great deal. M. de Montalembert does the honors with won-
derful grace. He talks very well, and is remarkably well-informed."

CHAPTER VIJ.

But while the Catholics were thus drawing together, their
adversaries were not idle. The chairs of all the faculties in
Paris resounded daily to impious and insidious attacks on
the doctrines of Christianity. Not satisfied with this, the
learned Professors had recourse to calumny, history and
experience having taught them that it generally proves a
more successful weapon against truth than logic. Every
lecture was full of false quotations and historical inaccuracies,
perfidiously prepared with a view to mislead their hearers as
to the fundamental teaching and spirit of the Gospel. Oza-
nam was a daily witness of this disloyal warfare, and it fired
him with indignation. His able retort to Professor Jouffroy *
had had the eftect of silencing direct attack from that bril-
liant psychologist by winning his personal respect for the
juvenile champion of the cause. But the hostility continued
unabated from every other quarter. Frederic meantime was
pursued by the idea that deeds, not speech, should be
opposed to the enemy. " It is all very well talking and
arguing and holding one's own against them, but why can
we not do somef/iing ?" he constantly repeated. Perhaps the
necessity for " doing something " was in a certain degree
prompted or pressed upon him by the St. Simonians, who, in
answer to their defence of the gospel, continually taunted
him and his party with, "Show us your works!" They
admitted the past grandeur of Christianity, but persisted in
declaring that it was now a dead tree that bore no fruit.

Even the historical debates of the Place de I'Estrapade,

•Jouffroy, on his death-bed, ten years later, returned to the fi'th which he had spent the
trreater part of his life in attacking. Ilis dying words to a philosopher friend, who stood
beside him, were, " All the systems put together are not worth one page of the Catechism \"

59

6o Life and 11 or ks of Frederic Ozanam.

which every week were the occasion of some brilUant display
of Frederic's talent, were becoming distasteful to him, because
their character was merely literary and rhetorical ; they were
not a direct effort in the interests of truth ; they were useful
and delightful, but quite inadequate to the service of truth as
he understood it.

One day, after taking part in a more than usually fiery
debate on some historical question, he left the conference-
hall in company with two friends, M. Lallier and M. La-
mache ; they walked on to the Hotel Corneille, where the
latter resided, discussing as they went what could be done
to stir up the Catholic camp to more strenuous efforts, and
to the necessity of utilizing these weekly meetings for some
higher purpose. They went up to Lallier's rooms and held a
long consultation as to what could be done. It was sug-
gested that the leaders should contrive to meet at the house
of one or other of them every week, so as to discuss more
exhaustively the points it was essential to bring out against
their adversaries, that they might thus arrive at the meeting
armed efficiently, and prepared all along the line; by this
means also they would gradually bring back and maintain the
debates within the special sphere they desired. Ozanam
mentioned casually in the course of the conversation that, in
discussing the matter with a friend the day before, it had
occurred to them it might be possible to organize a meeting
where they would occupy themselves not with discussions
but with good works, and thus oppose a practical denial to
the reproach of the St. Simonians. The suggestion met with
no immediate response from his two companions, but it had
in reality dropped -unawares the seed of the future Society of
St. Vincent de Paul. Nothing particular was decided that
day, but the trio parted with the understanding that they
were to convene the heads of their party at an early date for
the purpose of arranging some preparatory discussions for the
historical debates.

In the interval, none of them could say why or how this

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 6 1

notion of an exclusively practical meeting, which had been
incidentally thrown out by Ozanam, grew in their minds,
while, on the other hand, the importance of the proposed
preparation for the debates insensibly diminished. They
communicated the coincidence to each other, and then of one
accord went off to consult Pere Bailly. He saw at a glance
the value of the idea, and once more placed the office of the
Tribune Catholique at their dis^^osal.

Here, in the month of May, 1833, they held their first meet-,
ing. They begged M. Bailly to take the chair, which the
dear old man of course did, together with the title of Presi-
dent. He had as yet only eight members to preside over;
the scheme seemed quite utojjian to the rest of the party,
who stood aloof and contented themselves with wishing suc-
cess to their more sanguine and energetic companions.

It was settled at the very first meeting that their work
should be the service of God in the persons of the poor, whom
they were to visit at their own dwellings and assist by every
means in their power.

" If you intend the work to be really efficacious," said M.
Bailly, " if you are in earnest about serving the poor as well
as yourselves, you must not let it be a mere doling out of
alms, bringing each your pittance of money or food ; you
must make it a medium of moral assistance, you must give
them the alms of good advice " {l^aumone de la direction').

A portion of the very greatest misery of the poor often
proceeds from their not knowing how to help themselves out
of a difficulty once they have got into it; they fall into dis-
tress through accidental circumstances, arising from their own
fault or other people's, and they are too ignorant to see their
way out of it. The law frequently has a remedy ready for
them, but they don't know this, and there is no one to tell
them. Their one idea when they fall into distress is to hold
out their hand for an alms, a system whicli generally proves
as ineffectual as it is demorali-ring. M. Bailly suggested to his
young friends that they should try to remedy this lamentable

62 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

state of things by placing their education, their intelUgence,
their special knowledge of law or science, and their general
knowledge of life, at the disposal of the poor; that instead of
only taking them some little material relief, they should strive
to win their confidence, learn all about their affairs, and then
see how they could best help them to help themselves.
" Most of you are studying to be lawyers," he said, " some to
be doctors, etc. ; go and help the poor, each in your special
line; let your studies be of use to others as well as to your-
selves; it is a good and easy way of commencing your apos-
tolafe as Christians in the world."

Ozanam w-as sitting at M. Bailly's right hand, and one of
those present recalls vividly the expression of his countenance
as, with his black eyes alight, and his irregular, expressive fea-
tures quivering with sympathy, he listened to the President's
words, and then burst out into joyous assent. The idea of
this aumoiie de la direction was all the more welcome from the
fact that the young men had very little else to give. They
were somewhat perplexed at first from not knowing any poor
people to visit. This difficulty was, however, easily com-
passed : M. Bailly advised them to go ofi" to that beautiful,
grand soul, Soeur Rosalie, and ask her to help them. She re-
ceived the young apostles of charity like the mother that she
was, was overjoyed at their idea of the moral help they pro-
posed, gave them much valuable advice as to the way of
dealing with her beloved poor, and a list of needy and de-
serving families to visit. The Society was of course too poor
to have bans * in its own name, so Soeur Rosalie sold them
some of hers. The members placed themselves under the
protection of St. Vincent de Paul, whose name they adopted,
and this done they were fairly afloat. Each member had a
poor family to look after ; they met every week to report
their experiences, discuss the wants of their protege's^ and
the means of relieving them ; the meeting began and ended

* Tickets for provisions, coal, etc.

Life and Works of Frederic Czanam. d-^

with a prayer, and a collection was made to pay for the boiis.
The proceeds of the collection were, as may be imagined,
exceedingly small; but by and by the members were mys-
tified by finding four five-franc pieces amongst the soics and
rare little silver coins that were dropped into the leather
bag. Who was the Crcesus in disguise who contributed this
magnificent sum ? M. Bailly, after enjoying their curiosity
for a while, disclosed the secret. He was in the habit of ask-
ing Ozanam and one or two of the others to review books for
the Tribune Catholiqiie, and as they naturally scouted the. idea
of being paid anything by that most disinterested of journals,
the feditor took this way of remunerating them according to
his slender means, knowing they could not reject it.

The rules of the Society were simple but stringent. It was
forbidden to discuss politics or personal concerns at the meet-
ings; these topics were not even to be mentioned indirectly;
the Society was never to be made use of as a stepping-stone
to worldly advancement. This clause, which was emphatically
expressed, seemed rather superfluous, considering how remote
the chances were of the members being in a position to vio-
late it ; but it was inserted as a counterpart to the Bonnes
Etudes on which the historical conferences were in a certain
sense grafted, and whose members were pledged to help each
other on in the world. Nothing of the sort was to be tolerated
in the new confraternity ; no selfish principle was to inspire its
action ; it was to be animated only by charity, by love of God
and of suffering humanity, without any kind of reference
to self. The same spirit was to preside at the weekly confer-
ences ; there was to be no display of eloquence or learning, no-
thing but the reports of the week summed up in a business-
like manner, and the interests of the poor discussed in brief
and simple language.

The service of the members embraced the sick and infirm,
and those who were out of work from some just cause, either
illness or external conditions not of their own making ; every
precaution was taken against tlie help of the Society being di-

64 Lije and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

verted into unworthy channels, and serving as an encourage-
ment to idleness and pauperism.

Ozanam's first personal experience was a striking illustration
of the wisdom of M. Bailly's advice as to the way they should
practise charity. There fell to his lot a poor menage, composed
of a hard-working mother wiili five children, and a drunken
husband, who beat them all round, though, as the wife con-
scientiously explained, " not every day, only from time to
time." But what he never failed to do was to drag every
penny of the poor creature's earnings from her and spend
it at the tavern, while she anil the five children starveil at
home. She was in the last stage of misery and despair when
Ozanam found her out. He quickly discovered that the sup-
posed marriage was no marriage at all, and that mother
and children were free to leave their brutal master if they
chose. Her astonishment on hearing this was only equalled
by her thankfulness. At first she could not believe it; in her
complete ignorance of law and morals, she saw no reason why
it should be so. Ozanam had to go to the Procureiir du Roi
(Attorney-General) and bring her a written opinion stating
the fact in legal form before her incredulity was overcome.
She then gladly accepted her protector's offer to remove with
her half-starved family to another room out of the house of
their tormentor. The fury of the latter was very great on dis-
covering that his means of living and drinking were thus
suddenly taken from him, and he threatened all sorts of vio-
lence. Ozanam got an order from the police for him to quit
Paris, but the woman, hearing of this, entreated that he might
be rather forbidden to leave it, and that she and the two
youngest children miglit be sent on to Brittany, where her
mother lived, and would gladly receive them. This was ac-
cordingly done. Ozanam made a collection, which in a few
days produced the necessary money for the journey, and they
set off as happy as birds set free. The two eldest boys, little
fellows of eleven and twelve, were employed in M. Bailly's
printing-office, and taken care of at his house. This was the

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 65

beginning of those patronages which are now established in
every parish in Paris, and almost in France.

At first the eight members thought to limit the confraternity
to tliemselvcs, fearing that the simplicity of its design might
suffer if new-comers were admitted, and that the humble little
society might grow into a bustling, official organization. M.
Bailly, however, was of a different opinion, and declared that
the work must expand and grow; accordingly, on certain
stringent conditions, a few new members were admitted. One
of them, for a time, repeated the trick of the President, drop-
ping splendid alms, in the shape of five-franc pieces, into the
bag. He was found out and commended for his modesty, as
well as for his self-denial in conforming to the rule, which for-
bade a member, however rich, to give any alms to the family
he visited, except what was supplied from the general fund.
Such were the small beginnings of the great brotherhood of
St. Vincent de Paul. Twenty years afterwards,* Ozanam,
inaugurating a new Conference at Florence, thus relates its
early history and unexpected progress :

"W'ewere just then invaded by a delufje of heterodox and philosophical
doctrines that were clashing all round us, and we felt the need of strengthen-
ing our faith in the miJst of tlie assaults made upon it by the various systems
of false science. Some of our fellow-students were Materialists, others Si-
monians, others Fourierists, others Deists. When we Catholics sought to call
the attention of these wandering brothers to the marvels of Christianity, they
said to us, ' Yes, you have a right to speak of the past. In bygone days
Christianity did indeed work wonders, but to-day Christianity is dead. And
you, who boast of being Catholics, what do you do ? What works can you
show which prove your faith, and can claim to make us respect and acknow-
ledge it?' And they were right ; the reproach was but too well merited.
Then it was that we said to one another, ' Let us to the front I Let our deeds
be in accordance with our faith.' But what were we to do ? What could we
do to prove ourselves true Catholics except that which pleases God most ?
Succor our neighbor, as Jesus Christ did, and place our faith under the safe-
guard of charity.

" Eight of us united in this idea, and at first, as if jealous of our new-found
treasure, we would not open the door of our little assembly to any one else.
But God had other views with respect to us. The association of a few inti.
mate friends became, in His designs, the nucleus of an immense family of

• 1853.

66 Life a7id Works of Frederic Ozanam.

brothers that was to spread over a great part of Europe. You see that we
cannot with truth take the title of founders, for it was God who willed and
who founded our society.

" I remember that in the beginning one of my own friends, for a moment
misled by the theories of the St, Simonians, said to me with a' sort of pity,
' But what do you hope to do ? You are only eight poor young fellows, and
you expect to relieve the misery that swarms in a city like Paris ! Why, if you
counted any number of members you could do but comparatively nothing!
We, on the contrary, are elaborating ideas and a new system which will re-
form the world and banish misery from it altogether ! We shall do for hu-
manity in a moment what you could not accomplish in several centuries.' "

Nearly a quarter of a century had gone by when Ozanam
related this; the St. Simonians had died away, and with them
the transcendental theories which were to transfigure the
world, while the " eight poor fellows " whom they despised as
lunatics had increased to two thousand in Paris alone, where
they visited five thousand poor families, or an average of
twenty thousand individuals, which represented one-fourth of
the poor of that vast city. The conferences in France num-
bered five hundred, and there were others established in Eng-
land, Belgium, Spain, America, so far off even as Jerusalem.
Thus had the grain of mustard-seed, the smallest of all seeds,
sprung up into a great tree, beneath whose branches a multi-
tude of wayfarers found comfort and shade.

Ozanam always repudiated the title of founder of the soci-
ety— " We were eight," he would affirm emphatically ; never-
theless the title and the glory have clung to him whom the
others looked upon as their leader and the animating spirit
of their efforts. He deprecated the idea of its having a
" founder'" at all, or of laying any stress on the human in-
strumentality in works of the kind generally. " I firmly be-
lieve," he says, *' that the most solid institutions are not
those which man creates after his own fashion, with a delibe-
rate purpose, and with elements of his own creation, but those
which spring, as it were, from circumstances, and out of ele-
ments already existing."

About one month after the birth of the society, its members

Life and Works of Frederic Gzananu 67

publicly unfurled their banner by a courageous act of faith,
which Ozanam thus describes to his uiotiier :

"June 19, 1833.

.. _ If J ^vere to tell you that on the Feast of Corpus Christi three

harebrained young j^-entlemen sallied forth from Paris by the Champs Ely-
sees, at ei^ht o'clock in the morning;, I should probably excite your curiosity ;
if I announced to you that at ten o'clock thirty students were following the
procession at Nanterre, I should no doubt edify your piety ; if I were to add
that at six o'clock in the evening two-and-twenly of the said students were
comforting the inward man round a table at St. Germain-en-Laye, I should
mystify you still more ; finally, if I confided to you that on the stroke of mid-
night, or thereabouts, three youths knocked at the door of No. 7 Rue des
Gres,* that they were all three in high good-humor, that their legs were
shaky, and their shoes covered with dust, and that, moreover, one of the three
rejoices in chestnut locks and abroad nose and gray eyes, which are not quite
unknown to you— if I were to relate all this, my good little mother, what
would you say ? You would most certainly cry out, ' HaUoa ! this looks very
like a dangerous lark ! ' Well, now I see that I have struck the right rhord,
and lighted on one day in the year whose history is safe to interest you.

" You know that in Paris, as at Lyons, rehgious processions are prohibited ;
but it does not follow that because a certain number of roughs choose to pen
up Catholicism in its temples in the great cities, we young Catholics should
be deprived of one of the most toucliing ceremonials of our religion ; accord-
ingly, some of us determined to follow the procession at Nanterre, the quietest
of little villages, the birthplace of the gentle St. Genevieve.

"Sunday dawned serene and cloudless, as if heaven intended to adorn the
festival with its own splendor. I set off early with two friends, and we
arrived the first at the humble rendezvous. By degrees the little group in-
creased, and we were soon thirty. First came all the intellectual aristocracy
of the Conference — Lallier, Lamache, Cherruel, a converted St. Simonian, de
la None, who writes such charming verses ; then came natives of Languedoc,
of Franche-comte, Normans, and last, but not least, Lyonnese ; several wore
moustaches, and six of the band measured five feet eight inches. We dispersed
and fell in with the {feasants who followed the canopy ; it was such a pleasure
to elbow these good people, to sing with them, and to see their naive astonish-
ment at our fine app>earance and our piety ! The procession was numerous,
and the decorations full of simple elegance ; all the houses were festooned,
and the roads strewn with flowers. The faith and piety that we beheld on all
sides it would be difficult to describe. Some venerable old men, who were
too feeble to walk in the procession, waited at the threshold of their doors for
it to pass ; it was principally in front of their houses that the altars were
erected. The ceremony lasted nearly two hours. Then we assisted at High
Mass, where the crowd overflowed from the of)en church doors into the street.
When it was all over, Henri, 1 think, proposed that we should go and dine at

• The house where Frederic lodged after leaving M. .Ampere's.

68 Life and Woi ka of Frederic Ozanam.

St. Germain. Six or eight poltroons cried out about the distance ; we let them
cry and turn their steps towards home, and the remaining twenty-two, in
groups of three or four only, so as not to make any disturbance, set forth,
kicking up the dust on the road to St. Germain. Pleasure gave wings to our
heels ; we gathered wild strawberries in the woods as we went, and in due time
arrived at the end of our walk. We went into the church for a quarter of an
hour while vespers were going on, then we visited the grand old castle, so rich in
memories, so proud of its antiquity.

" rhen, having disported ourselves some time on the terrace, we took our-
selves off to a worthy innkeeper, who undertook to spread the board for forty
sous a head. Here comes the ticklish part of the day's entertainment ! How
many heroes have been conquered by the seductions of the dessert ! How many
sages have seen their wisdom break hke brittle glass at the contact of the foam-
ing bottle of champagne ! We were wise enough lo flee the temptation ; the
modest Maconnais, doubly baptized by mine host and his guests, was the only
wine admitted to the feast. So, dear mother, no one rolled under the table,
nobody burdened the shoulders of any one else with a melancholy load ! We
started homewards in the cool of the evening. The mco i rose presently, and
lighted us through the forest. It was a delicious hour. ... As night
closed in we lost sight of each other ; some took the omnibus at Xeuilly ;
two of my comrades walked with me to my own door. Monday had begun.
Only my heart can tell how often I thought of you during this day, one of the
most charming of my life."

This brave manifestation on the part of the Catholic stu-
dents was not without its effect, and it was significant of the
ground they had gained that although the adventure was
quickly circulated through the ranks, not a single word of ridi-
cule was spoken about it or the bold young confessors.

But these humble individual protests did not satisfy Oza-
nam. He felt that, as the evil was greatest amongst the
most cultivated intellectual classes, it should be attacked
there before any deep or lasting reform could be hoped for.
For this warfare, however, a powerful and brilliant champion
was needed, and where was he to be found ?

God, meanwhile, was preparing His weapon.

CHAPTER VIII.
1834.

The history of the Church offers no parallel to the fall of
M. tie Lamennais and the scattering of the brilliant galaxy of
writers and orators of which that misguiding star had made
itself the centre. His disciples, stunned at first, could hardly
believe in so great a fall. They strove to arrest the master on
the briiik of the abyss, pleading with him like children striving
to save a father from suicide ; they left nothing untried — re-
monstrance, entreaties, caresses ; they clung to him to the
last ; then, seeing that all was in vain, they left him sorrow-
fully, and each went his way.

The Abbe Gerbet withdrew into solitude, and in course of
time gave to the world those works which, for suavity and
grace, have been so often likened to the style of Fenelon.

M. de Montalembert had plunged into the dusky shadows
of Benedictine lore, from which he was one day to emerge,
holding in his hand the Life of St. Elizabeth, that incompara-
ble story where the delicate graces of an artist and the kind-
ling enthusiasm of a biographer are blended with the rigid
accuracy of an historian.

The Abbe Lacordaire, after a period of seclusion and study,
was the first to stand forth once more in public Hfe — public at
least compared with the profound isolation which had pre-
ceded it.

The history of the great Dominican has been amply writ-
ten, and is already familiar to the greater number of our
readers ; but they may not be so generally aware that a por-
tion of his career, its most brilliant one, was closely, though
silently, connected with Frederic Ozanam. We are not,

6q

7© Life and Works of Ftcderic Ozanam.

therefore, straying from our subject by a digression which
tends to show that Ozanam's influence touched the destinies
of the orator whose genius and sanctity may have had their
own share in influencing the destinies of France.

The anti-Christian spirit which Ozanam and his httle army
were combating so strenuously was deep-seated as ever in those
high centres where the youth of France came to look for intel-
lectual guidance and inspiration. The Sorbonne had been
more guarded in its utterances of late, but its plulosophy was
none tlie less deeply imbued with the spirit of infidelity.
Jouffroy and his colleagues were steadily carrying on the cru-
sade of Atheism against God, of Voltairianism and rational-
ism against the Gospel. What was needed to cope with
these men was a theologian, who was at the same lime a man
of genius, who would unite science and learning and eloquence
to faith, and would thus have suflScient prestige, in the first in-
stance, to gain a hearing for an unpopular subject. Ozanam felt
that this was the only remedy which could be applied with any
chance of success. One day, on coming out of the Sorbonne
from one of these displays of so[)histry and false science, he
observed to a companion, " What we want is a man of the pre-
sent time, young like ourselves, whose ideas sympathize with
ours, that is, with the aspirations and struggles of the young men
of our day." ' Where was this man, this theologian uniting elo-
quence, holiness, learning, science, and modern sympa-
thies, to be found ? There were able and eloquent divines
amongst the clergy of Paris, but they were all elderly, most
of them old men, and all cast in the venerable but antique
mould of St. Sulpice, which had given so many learned and
devout priests to France, but which, if we may apply so un-
seemly a word to such a subject, had gone out of fashion.
Their mode of preaching belonged to a period that had
passed away ; the young sceptics and sophists of the day
were not to be lured into the churches by sermons which they
knew would be cast in the identical form the world had been
used to for generations and grown tired of; they did not

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 71

care about Christian doctrine, and would listen to no exposi-
tion of truths they had ceased to believe in, unless it was pre-
sented to them in the guise of some attractive novelty ; for it
was simply a question of preaching the gospel to a generation
which was practically as ignorant of it as, and more antagonis-
tic than, the Gentiles whom the twelve apostles went forth to
evangelize. It was not a question, as in the middle ages, or
even the seventeenth century, of converting men to repent-
ance, of waking them up to the terrors of God's* wrath; the
very foundations for such an apostolate no longer existed;
there was, so to speak, no basis of operation for it. If Bos-
suet himself had come back to life and preached the glowing
sermons which electrified the dissolute court of Louis Quar-.
torze, he would have produced no effect on the sceptics of the
nineteenth century beyond exciting their admiration of his
eloquence ; his thunders would have waked no more echo in
their souls than the roaring of the lion does frorti the trees of
the forest. Wliat did it avail to draw vivid pictures of the
last day, of hell and judgment, and the wrath of an angry
God, before the eyes of men who had ceased, and whose
fathers had ceased, to believe in those awful truths, who ac-
knowledged no God but their own bodies, and bowed to no
divinity but their own reason ? It had all to be begun from
the very beginning, and it must be done by one whose voice
was attuned to the spirit of the century, while faith lifted him
beyond it and above it.

Henri Lacordaire was essentially a child of this sceptical
age; the burning breath of unbelief had swept over his soul,
and for a few young, precious years dried up the fountains of
faith, until a touch from the finger of God caused the waters
to gush forth purer and more abundant than ever. The ex-
perience had been full of peril, but it had done its work, and
left behind it, in Lacordaire's heart, a bond of sympathy and
intelligence with those undergoing the same trial which con-
stituted, to the last, one of his most persuasive arms.

His first oratorical successes were achieved in Paris in the

'J2 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

chapel of the College Stanislas, where the superior, the Abbe
Buquet, had invited him to come and address the pupils. He
also preached a sermon at St. Roch, but it was written out
and composed after the usual model of sermons, and proved
a complete failure. Every one left the church saying, " The
Abbe Lacordaire will never be a preacher." He thought so
himself. " It is clear to me that 1 have not sufficient physical
power, nor sufficient flexibility of mind, nor sufficient compre-
hension of the world, where I hav.e always lived and always
shall live in solitude — in a word, sufficient of anything that
goes to make a preacher in the real sense of the word."* At
the same time his impromptu discourses in the College Chapel
met with a success that filled him with consolation. " The
young suit me," he writes ; " whenever I have been called
upon to address them in our college chapels, I have done some
good." And he adds to M. de Montalembert, " If I am ever
destined to utilize my powers for the Church, it must be in the
apologetical style — that is to say, in that form which gathers
up the glories and beauties of the history and polemics of re-
ligion in order to exalt Christianity in the minds of the hear-
ers, and by this means compel their belief in it." Ozanam,
who had heard the Abbe Lacordaire at Stanislas, drew pre-
cisely the sam.e conclusion as to the direction of his gifts and
the nature of his mission. " There is the man we want to
confound Jouffroy and his school ! •' he cried on issuing from
one of these wonderful improvisations. Here was the man he
had dreamed of and longed for as the champion of the Gospel
against the infidels and sophists of the Sorbonne. And im-
mediately the thought occurred to him that if they could ob-
tain from the Archbishop of Paris a series, not of sermons,
but of conferences at Notre Dame by the Abbe Lacordaire it
would be a glorious gain.

He confided this idea to two law students, great friends of
his, M. Lejouteux and M. de Montazet ; they fell in with it
enthusiastically, and, with that delightful spontaneity of youth

* Letter to M, Lorrain, 6 Mai, 1833.

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 73

which believes in all it hopes, they settled off-hand to go next
day and propose the thing to Monseigneur de Quelen.

The Archbishop was then lodging at the convent of Les
Dames de St. Michel, Rue St. Jacques, his palace having
been burned down in the Revolution of 1830.

Monseigneur de Quelen was the type of a noble ecclesias-
tic, gracious, simple, and possessing at the same time a state-
liness of demeanor and a dignity of manner which commanded
admiration and inspired respect. He received the three young
men with great kindness, listened to them with interest, and
promised to give their proposal immediate thought. He ex-
plained to them, at the same time, that he saw grave impedi-
ments in the way. Emboldened by his condescension, they
urged the state of public feeling, the absolute need of apply-
ing a remedy to the prevailing hostility towards religion, and
at last ventured timidly to mention the Abbe Lacordaire as
the man most fitted for their design. Monseigneur de Que-
len agreed with their views, and acknowledged the talent of
their candidate, but still replied that there were many points
to be considered before he could decide upon inaugurating a
novelty such as they proposed. He conversed with them
some time, and, while lamenting the infidelity and impiety of
the times, declared that he was persuaded the dawn of a
better day was at hand, and that they would live to see reli-
gion come triumphantly out of the present struggle.

'''Yes," he added impressively, " I have the conviction that
a crisis is at hand, and that God is preparing for Himself a
signal victory."

He took leave of the three youths with emotion, gave them
his blessing, and then clasping their three heads in one em-
brace, he said, " I embrace all the Catholic youth of France
in your persons."

They went away very much elated by the half promise
that had been held out to them. The impetus was now
given, and the sclieme must work its own way on to final
accomplishment. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul took it

74 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanant.

up with the ardor of youthful neophytes, and the project grew
in possibility from being discussed on all sides.

The Abbe Lacordaire, meantime, heard nothing of the
plan which concerned him so closely. He was just then liv-
ing in a convent situated in the remotest part of Paris, plunged
in study, and as much aloof from the movement fermenting
outside his room as if he had been buried in La Trappe. He
was disturbed one day in his studious retreat by the Abbe
Buquet, who had been much struck by the extraordinary
effect which his few previous exhortations had produced on
the pupils of the College Stanislas, and who came now to beg
him to undertake a regular course of " conferences " in their
chapel. Lacordaire, who believed that this was precisely
his appointed mission, consented at once. Ozanam and his
friends knew nothing either of this proposal or its acceptance;
but they still held to their idea that tlie Abbe Lacordaire was
the man who should inaugurate the Conferences of Notre
Dame; accordingly, just ten days before he began his lectures
at the college, Frederic determined to make another attempt
with the Archbishop. He himself drew up a petition, ran
about Paris till he got the signatures of two hundred Catholic
students appended to it, and, accompanied this time by his
friends Lallier and Lamache, set out once more to the Rue
St. Jacques.

Ozanam passed all his life for being extremely shy and
timid, but in reality he was neither; he was too innately sim-
ple to be shy in the ordinary sense, and his apparent timidity
was but an excess of modesty which made him keep in the
background while there was any one else to take the initia-
tive, but when he was called upon to do it, he did so with
perfect self-possession.

The Archbishop received him and his companions with even
greater cordiality than on Frederic's first visit, encouraged the
latter to speak freely, and was impressed by the clearness and
depth of his views, his judgment of the time?, their necessities
and characteristics. The sagacity he displayed would have

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam, 'j^

been remarkable in a man of mature years ; in a boy of
?:T>eiity it was surprising. Monseigneur de Quelen assured
him that he had not forgotten their conversation of eight
months past; that he had turned the subject in his mind,
and had determined to have a course of sermons preached
at Notre Dame by the best preachers of the day.

But this was not what the young men wanted. The
audience they wished to reach would never go to a sermon;
the name in itself would be a repellent force, no matter how
able the preacher might be. What the petitioners wanted was
something entirely out of the beaten track — lectures or con-
ferences where the vital questions then agitating the schools
would be handled in a brilliant and polemical manner, where
religion would be presented in its relations with society, and
where the teaching of the anti- Christian press and periodicals
of France and Germany would be indirectly met and com-
bated. No man of the present day, Ozanam urged, was so
qualified for this mission as the Abbe Lacordaire. He was
well known to the public through the lawsuit before the
Chamber of Peers, where, in company with M. de Montalem-
bert, he had displayed such magnificent forensic talent. He
held the popular sympathies more than any ecclesiastic in
France, and he was esteemed by Catholics as a devout, dis-
interested, and zealous priest.

Monseigneur de Quelen admitted all this, but still he hesi-
tated. At last, pressed into a corner by the entreating of the
young men, he said he thought he saw a way of satisfying
them, and that he would certainly do something. As lie spoke
the door opened, and M. de Lamennais was announced.

The fears which for a moment had filled the hearts of the
great journalist's disciples were lulled of late ; no one dreamed
that M. de Lamennais was at heart a traitor, and on the eve
of stabbing the Church with a parricidal hand; still, consider-
ing recent events, the extreme cordiality of the Archbishop's
greeting caused some little surprise to Frederic and his com-
panions. He ran forward and embraced M. de Lamennais,

7 6 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

and then, still holding him by the hand, he said, turning to
the young men, " Gentlemen, here is the -man who would
suit you. Ah ! if the feebleness of his voice would only per-
mit him to preach, we should have to throw open the great
doors to let in the crowd, and even then the Cathedral would
not be vast enough to hold the numbers who would flock
round his pulpit ! "

" Alas ! Monseigneur, my career is ended," replied M. de
Lamennais sadly.

It was indeed ended — Monseigneur de Quelen httle guessed
how fatally. He little dreamed, while thus lavishing marks
of confidence and esteem on that brilliant genius, and desig-
nating him to the youth of France as the powerful and ac-
credited champion of the faith, M. de Lamennais had already
sent the MS. of his Paroles d'un Croyant to M. de Sainte-
Beuve, begging him to hurry on the publication as quickly as
possible ; and yet for at least a fortnight after this he kept up
the semblance of submission to the Holy See, and outward
deference to its representatives. His mere presence at the
Archbishop's on this day was an act of treason, and the mo-
tive of the visit still remains unknown.

The young men withdrew, leaving their petition in the
hands of his Grace. They had done it all very quietly ; no
one but themselves knew of the visit. Their surprise and
vexation may therefore be imagined on reading a full account
of it in the columns of the Univers next day. Lamache at
once confessed himself the culprit. He had confided the
story to an indiscreet friend, who had evidently betrayed them
to the Univers. The two others rushed off immediately to
the Rue St. Jacques — Lamache was ashamed to go with
them — to make their apologies to the Archbishop. He was
more amused than annoyed, and consoled instead of rebuking
them. " I had not seen the article," he said good-humoredly,
"but it is just like those newspapers! " He pressed them to
his heart, and then, conducting them to the door of an adjoin-
ing salon, he said they would find there the preachers whom

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanain. 77

he had charged to carry out their wishes, and that they could
not do better than go in and talk over the matter with
ces Messieurs whilst he was taking his breakfast.

The young men were terribly disappointed. The seven
preachers to whom they were thus suddenly introduced did
not in the least realize their plan. They obeyed the Arch-
bishop, however, and opened their programme with frankness
and simplicity. The assembled ecclesiastics, amongst whom
were some of the lights of the French clergy, were astounded
by the boldness and novelty of the design ; but the young
men held their ground, and presently the discussion became
warm and excited on both sides ; three of the preachers alone
took a direct part in it, the others listening and chiming in with
notes of approval or disapprobation. Ozanam, who liad not
sat down, was arguing the point with an elderly vicar, who
was especially scandalized at the " novelty " of the scheme,
and held forth in a loud voice, backing as he spoke, and ges-
ticulating with great vehemence, wliile Ozanam, advancing as
the other backed, displayed a corresponding warmth of manner.
The discussion was at its height, when suddenly the door
opened, and the majestic figure of the Archbishop appeared
upon the threshold. Ozanam, who had his back to the door,
was made aware of his presence by his interlocutor suddenly
thrusting out his arms as if to keep somebody off, while he
cried out entreatingly, " Monseigneur, nous nous entendons
parfaitement avec ces Messieurs ! "

" Ah ! " replied the Archbishop, surveying the scene with a
smile ; " si vous ne vous entendez pas, au moins on vous en-
tend ! " And he laughingly withdrew.

The oi)inion of the ecclesiastics prevailed. A series of ser-
mons was preaclied at Notre Dame on the i6th of February.
In spite of the undeniable talent and zeal of the seven
preachers, the result entirely justified Ozanam's predictions.
The want of unity in the design, inevitable from the variety
of the preachers, marred the effect of the whole, and the fact
gf their being all priests of the old school prevented curiosity,

78 Life and J Forks of Frederic Ozaiiam.

and failed to attract any portion of the public they were
specially intended to reach.

This very public, meantime, was crowding into the small
chapel of the College Stanislas, where the Abbe Lacordaire
was ])Ouring out his improvised addresses every Sunday. The
^rst of these took place on the 19th of January, 1834.

There were one hundred free seats in the chapel, and on
this first day many were unoccupied, but on the following
Sunday every one was taken long before the conference be-
gan, and the Sunday after that again the affluence was so
great that the pupils were sent away to make room for the
strangers, who before long numbered six hundred. Amongst
them were some of the most illustrious names in France,
Chateaubriand, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Sainte-Beuve, etc. ;
Christians and sceptics, royalists and republicans, all came
indiscriminately, drawn by the power of genius. Berryer,
who had been in attendance from the beginning, arrived late
one day and found the doors closed ; he sent in haste for a
ladder and got in through a window; the same thing hap-
pened to Chateaubriand. There could be no doubt but that
the Abbe Lacordaire had found out the secret of his audience.
The " old formula was swallowed up," the antique mould was
broken; instead of a sermon written out beforehand, begin-
ning with a text, divided into heads, and abundantly fortified
with Latin quotations from the old Fathers, the speaker stood
up and spoke from the fulness of an overflowing heart; it
was a spontaneous utterance, ardent, impassioned, a young
mountain-torrent bearing down all before it in its magnificent
and sparkling impetuosity. His whole being preached; his
eye, like a flame, kindled where it fell ; his voice was not
modulated to the grave and measured tones of the con-
ventional type, but rang out natural and unrestrained, now
piercing, now persuasive, now supplicating, now menacing.
Pere Lacordaire has been called a revolutionary; even to this
day there are to be found some who apply the term to him as
a stigma and a reproach. In one sense the accusation is per-

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 75

fectlyjust: he made a revolution in the pulpit. But it was
entirely in the outward form that he revolutionized it. The
subjects were the same immemorial ones that have been
preached from all the pulpits of Christendom since St. Peter
and Paul to our own day — God, Creation, the- origin of evil,
original sin, the redemption, human nature, the prophecies,
the Incarnation ; there was no novelty in all this, nor in his
interpretation of the doctrines embodied in each subject;
nothing was new except the mode of treatment, rendered irre-
sistible by the genius of the orator. The stereotyped preacher
had become a personal presence, a soul identified with the
souls he was addressing, sharing their fears, understanding
their doubts, sympathizing with their hopes, an apostle long-
ing to convince them, to win them to God by the contagion
of his own faith, filled with too mighty a compassion to leave
any room for scorn. M. de Montalembert, speaking of
Henri Lacordaire as he saw him shortly before this period of
his life, describes him as the impersonation of " virtue armed
for the defence of truth." And the master touch paints him
well. Like David in the flower of his shepherd days, when
he came down and slew Goliath, Lacordaire stood forth in the
bright meridian of his youth, girt with a warrior's courage,
and strong with the strength of his consecrated virgin heart,
ready to give battle to the enemies of his God,

The effect was like nothing the world had seen since the
days of Bossuet. Ozanam, who was always one of the earliest
in the chapel with his body-guard of St. Vincent de Paul,
listened entranced and inconsolable. Why was this glorious
apostolic voice confined within narrowing college wall^, in-
stead of waking the echoes of the grand Cathedral ! He re-
solved that nothing should deter him from pursuing the pro-
ject which, now more than ever, he felt to be well inspired.
While waiting and working for its fulfilment let us see how it
fared with the young student in his own life and personal con-
cerns. For this purpose we cannot do better than refer to
some of his letters.

CHAPTER IX.

1834-5.

TO FALCONNET.

January 7, 1834,

" I AM undergoing, at this moment, one of the most painful trials perhaps
that life has in store for us — uncertainty as to my vocation. All this is be-
tween ourselves ; but sucli is the flexibility and weakness of my character that
there is no study, no work which does not possess a certain charm for me, and
in which I cannot fairly succeed, while there is not a single one capable of
absorbing all my faculties and concentrating my powers. 1 cannot occupy
myself with any one thing without thinking of a score of others, and yet, you
know, no work can be great unless it be one. I used to fancy, in my ignorance,
that it was possible to be at one and the same time a savant and a barrister ;
but, now that my legal studies are drawing to a close, I must choose between
the two ; I must put my hand in the urn, and shall I draw a black number or
a white one ? I am surrounded, in a certain way, by seductions of every sort ;
I am sought after, put forsvard, pushed, as it were, into a career foreign to
my studies ; because it so happens that God and education have endowed me
with a certain grasp of ideas, and a certain breadth of observation, people
want to set me up as a sort of leader of the Young Catholic party. A number
of young men, of great merit, favor me with a degree of esteem of which I
feel most unworthy, and men of mature age make advances to me. I must
take the lead in every movement ; and when there is anything difficult to be
done, I must bear the burden of it. They cannot hold a meeting, a conference
of law or literature, but I must take the chair ; five or six reviews and news-
papers want articles from me ; in one word, a number of circumstances, inde-
pendent of my will, besiege and pursue me, and drag me from the path I had
tracea out for myself.

" I am not prompted by vanity in telling you all this; on the contrar}-, I
feel so keenly my own insufficiency — I, who am not yet twenty-one — that all
these compliments and eulogies humiliate me, and make me often inclined to
laugh at my own importance. But it is in truth no laughing matter. I sometimes
endure downright torture from the fear that all this incense may go to my head
and intoxicate me, and thus cause me to miss what I have hitherto considered
as my proper career, the one which the wishes of my parents pointed out. and
towards which I myself felt willingly drawn. And yet this convergence of
outward circumstances, may it not be an indication of God's will ? I cannot
tell ; and in mv perplexity I do not rush forward, nor make a single step in
advance, but stand aui.-tlv and resist, and then, when the pressure is too

Life and Works of Frederic Ozauam. 8 1

great, I give way. For some time past — above all, since I have seen some
very young men laid low by death — life hsis worn a different aspect to me.
Although 1 never gave up the practice of my religion, the idea of the other
world had not sunk deeply enough into my heart, and I only began now to
realize that I had not hitherto been mindful enough of two companions who
are always walking by our side, even when we do not notice them — God and
death. I began to feel that Christianity had been to me hitherto a sphere of
thought, a sphere of worship, more than a sphere of action, of intention, of
morality. Silvio Pellico's writings especially brought this home to me ; and
the more I dwell on it, the more I feel myself grow in disinterestedness, in
kindness, and in peace. I seem to understand better the conditions of life,
and to have more courage to go forth and meet them. It seems to me also
that I am less proud than I used to be. Don't fancy, for all this, that I have
turned saint or hermit. I am unluckily a long way off from the former, and
I have no vocation for the latter. While feeling all that I have described, I
contrive to be very jolly, asking nothing better than to enjoy myself, busying
myself, perhaps rather too much, with literature, history, and philosophy,
doing a little law, and, as usual, losing a good deal of time."

He said truly ; the "jolly " element was not excluded from
this thoughtful life, but its manifestations were of the most
innocent kind. Some of the survivors of those bright days
still recall, with a thrill of the old merriment, a certain
memorable soiree given by Ozanam, to which the guests
were invited to bring their own chairs, his apartment only
boasting of three. A procession of young gentlemen was,
accordingly, seen one evening filing down the Rue des Gres,
each carrying a chair on his head, to the infinite amusement
of the public, who trooped after them, while the laughter of
the chair-bearers themselves endangered their own and their
chairs' equilibrium, and brought out the concierge in amaze-
ment to enquire the meaning of the singular cortege. About
eleven o'clock they came down again, holding their chairs
aloft as before, and quite as steadily, for the hospitality of
their host had been as simple as it was cordial, syrups and
little cakes being the only excesses indulged in. " But oh !
how we did enjoy ourselves," exclaimed the narrator from
whom we hold the story ; " we nearly died of laughter, and
between times there was such earnest, enthusiastic talk on so
many deep subjects. I don't believe young men know how

82 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

to amuse themselves or laugh nowadays, as we used to do ;
they want so much money for everything ; we used to be
jolly on nothing at all !"

TO HIS MOTHER.

" i6th May, 1834.
"According as one grows older, and sees the world nearer, one finds how
hostile it is to all one's ideas and most cherished sentiments. The more one
sees of men, the more one discovers their immorality and selfishness — pride in
the learned, foppery in men of the world, coarse debauchery amongst the
people. When one has been brought up in the pure atmosphere of a Chris-
tian family, the sight of all this turns one aside with disgust and indignation,
and inclines one to murmur and curse. But the Gospel forbids it, and tells us
to devote ourselves, heart and soul, to this same society which repulses and
despises us. One feels all this deeply at my age, and those realities which
destroy one's illusions leave nie often sombre and grave as a man of forty. 1
feel that my duty is to fill some place, but I cannot see where it is ; ambitions
are so numerous, and capacities so multiplied and various, that it is difficult
to break through the lines. How can a poor little ear of wheat pierce its way
up through the masses of tares growing all around it ? And then, even if I
saw my place clearly marked out, I want the necessary energy to fill it ; you
know this is the constant burden of my complaint — irresolution and frailty. I
never can say to-day, ' I will do this,' and then to-morrow do it. But per-
haps, after all, I am too young, and it is wrong of me to worry myself so, and
to want to be a grown man when I am still so near childhood in many points ;
but I cannot forget that this year my education will be finished, and that in
the month of August I may be a barrister if I wish — I, a barrister I After
all, it is no great things, a barrister."

Frederic had no taste for politics, and troubled himself
little about them, although he was destined later to exercise
a certain indirect political influence in his sphere. The fol-
lowing letter, written at this period, will be read with interest.
The opinions it expresses were, as we shall see, those to
which he adhered througliout his life :

" As to political opinions, I should like to see the annihilation of the spirit
of politics for the benefit of the social spirit. I have for the old royalty all the
respect which one owes to a glorious invalid, but I would not lean on him,
because with his wooden leg he could not keep pace with the new generation.
I neither deny nor repudiate any combination of government ; I regard them
all merely as instruments for making mankind happier and better. If you
must have a formula, here it is :

" I believe in authority as a means, in liberty as a means, in charity as an
end.

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanain. 83

•' There are two principal kinds of government, and these two kinds may
be animated by opposite principles.

" Either it is the sacrificing {exploitation) of all to the profit of one, as in
the monarchy of Nero — a monarchy which I abhor.

"Or it is the sacrifice of one to the profit of all, as in the monarchy of St.
Louis, which I revere and love.

"Or it is the sacrificing of all for the profit of each one, as in the republic
of the Terror, and this republic I curse.

" Or it is the self-sacrifice of each one for the benefit of all ; and this is the
Christian republic of the primitive Church of Jerusalem. Perhaps it may be
also that of the end of time, the highest state to which humanity can rise.

" Every government is respectable in my eyes, insomuch as it represents
the Divine principle of authority. In this sense I understand the omnis
potestas of St. Paul. But I think that in everj' government the sacred prin-
ciple of liberty should be admitted, and I believe that we may energetically
defend this principle, and that we may raise our voice in stern and courageous
accents to warn the authority which sacrifices it instead of sacrificing itself.
Sp)eech is meant to be the dam which should be opposed to power ; it is the
grain of sand against which the waves break.

"Opposition is useful and admissible, but not insurrection; active obe-
dience, passive resistance ; the Prigione of Silvio Pellico, not les Paroles cTun
croyant.

"You and I are too young just now to take any part in the social struggle,
but this does not compel us meantime to remain idle in the midst of the
world suffering and groaning around us. A preparatory way is open to us
before trj'ing to aid in the public good ; we may do good to a few before
regenerating France ; we may succor a few of her poor sons. This is why I
long to see all yoitug men who have intelligence and heart united in same
scheme of charity, that thus a vast and generous association for the relief of
the poorer classes might be formed all over the country."

The holidays of 1834 were spent at Lyons in the quiet
circle of his family. Frederic's impression of the changes
which had taken place during his absence of two years is
thus described to Lallier :

" I feel almost a stranger here after two years' absence. Old acquaintances
are gone ; little cousins have made their appearance during my exile ; older
ones have gone through their philosophy, and are getting ready to go to Paris.
Some have got married, others have lost their wives. My old confessor is
dead, and nearly all the priests in the parish have been changed. The town
itself is changed. The cannon of the ' joumees' of April have destrcyed some
of the houses, but, by way of compensation, our hills are crowned with brand-
new fortresses, with green glacis and white walls, and cannons of the finest
bronze. Trade is nowhere, and the workmen are emigrating to Switzerland ;
but then we have a splendid garrison, reviews, practising of fire-arms, patrols,

84 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanatrt.

and sentries at every step The quays are carpeted with uniforms, and long
sabres ring pleasantly on the pavement and in the public squares. If a few
manufactories are empty, what then ? Prisons, and those haunts which sup-
ply them with inmates, are full to overflowing In many places the cannons
and bullets have damaged entire neighborhoods, so that the fronts of the
shops have to be completely rebuilt. In fact I can hardly recognize this poor
old city of Lyons. On the other hand, I have found some new joys awaiting
me here. Our family from Florence has come to live here , my uncle and
aunt and cousins are most affectionate and kind to me ; add to this the love
of my parents and my two brothers, and you will say I ought to be satis-
fied ; that this is enough. Well now, my dear L., I think I may say it, without
ingratitude to Providence, it is not enough. God has placed in our souls two
cravings which resemble each other, but which we must not confound. We
want kindred to cherish us, but we also want friends who are attached to us.
The tenderness that springs from blood, and the affection that springs from
sympathy, are two distinct enjoyments which we cannot do without, and
neither of which can replace the other. The love of kindred is the more
sacred of the two, because it is planted in the heart by God Himself; friend-
ship, on the other hand, is the more seductive, from being our own achieve-
ment."

TO LALLIER.

" Of all my recent pleasures the greatest has been a pilgrimage to St. Point
to see M. de Lamartine. Dufieux, who knows him, had asked permission to
bring me. We set out together one Sunday morning for Macon, where we
arrived towards evening, after passing through a charming country. There
we heard that M, de Lamartine was at his Chateau de St. Point, five leagues
beyond Macon, in the mountains. Accordingly on Monday morning after
breakfast we started in a light char-a-banc, driven by a small charioteer in
rags, who took us over the road of the ancient and celebrated Abbey of Cluny.
When we had admired from a distance the ruins of this old house of God, we
struck off to the left through the wide and beautiful valley where the great
man's abode is situated. On a knoll at the foot of the mountains there is a
little village, overshadowed by a semi-Gothic church and a castle ; the castle
belonged formerly to the dreaded Count of St. Point, who rivalled in cruelty
the Baron des Adrets. The hamlet consisted, twenty years ago, of a group of
coarse, ignorant, and wicked peasants. M. de Lamartine has civilized the
entire place. He repaired, enlarged, and embellished the castle ; he rebuilt
the steeple ; he has bought a house to ser\'e for a hospital and schools ; he has
Ofjened roads to establish communications between the village and the high-
road, and he is at this moment building a magnificent bridge over a ravine.
These improvements have drawn numerous inhabitants to the valley. White
houses are rising on everj' side, and the whole region wears an aspect of ease
and content. The manners of the people have become pure and gentle, and
the stranger who comes to visit the poet meets good folks at every turn who
volunteer to serve him as guides. And now here we are at the gates of the
castle I An elegant Gothic porch adonis the entrance, while three lordly

Life and Works of Frederic Ozariam. 85

towers lend it a somewhat majestic appearance. We cross the threshold of
the salon, where Madame de Lamartine greets us with the utmost kindness ;
she is an excellent lady, good and pious, an Enghshwonian converted to the
Catholic faith. It so happened that this day there were a great many people
at St. Point, an English family amongst others, so we saw to our disappoint-
ment that we should not be able to enjoy the undivided society of him whom
we had come so far to see. At last M. de Lamartine himself appeared. No-
thing could be more friendly than the way he welcomed Dufieux, and he re-
ceived me with the greatest affability. He took us off to a pavilion, where we
sat chatting, all three, for nearly two hours. He explained to us his large
and generous political views, and his beautiful literary theories. He asked
innumerable questions concerning the young men of the colleges of to-day,
and the spirit which animates them, and seemed full of hope in the future.
His ideas are linked together with solid logic, his language is picturesque and
brilliant ; he thinks more like a philosopher than a poet, and speaks more like
a fxjet than philosopher. I have rarely seen a man who combines more
noble qualities. He is fifty-three years of age, and bears on his countenance
the impress of sorrow borne with dignity, and of glory accepted with modesty.
His forehead is very broad, his eyes large and bright, the lines of his mouth
at once gracious and severe, his features are thin, his height commanding.

" .\t table and in the salon he struck me as full of charm ; he pressed us
cordially to remain and spend a week with him, and, as we could not do this,
he made us promise to go and see him in Paris this winter. We dined, slept,
and next day he took us to see his two other houses of Milly and Monceaux.
All along the road the peasants saluted him with an air of affection ; he
accosted them and chatted with them, enquiring about their vintage, their
affairs, and their families; they all seemed to love him, and the children ran
after him, calling out Bon jour, Monsieur Alphonse ! At Monceaux I found
M. de Pierreclare, We dined together, and in the evening took leave of our
illustrious host and relapsed into our native obscurity."

These pleasant episodes did not distract Ozanam's mind
unduly from graver interests. Amidst the pleasures of his
holiday he was mindful of the poor and their friends of St.
Vincent de Paul.

TO M. X.

" 1 think you have taken what was best worth taking amongst us in seizing
a charitable idea, which was latent in your own heart, no doubt, but had not
yet found its outward expression. In a work like this, I think we should
abandon ourselves much more to the inspiration of our heart than the calcu-
lations of our head. Providence sends us counsel and advice in the form of
external circumstances, of thoughts and inspirations. I think you will do bet-
ter to follow this guidance freely, and not hamper yourself Nx-ith rules and for-
mulas. Besides, the end which we propose to ourselves in Paris is not pre-
cisely the same, it seems to me, which you have in the provinces. We are

86 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

birds of passage, at a distance from the paternal nest, and over whom that
vuhure, incredulity, hovers, hoping to make a prey of us. The first thing
was, therefore, to gather these poor birds of passage under some sort of pro-
tecting shelter, and to form an association of mutual encouragemeni for Catho-
lic young men, a centre where they would find friendship, support, and the
stimulus of example ; where the elders would welcome the new-comers from
the provinces, and g^ve them a sort of moral hospitality. Now, the strongest
tie, the principle of true friendship, is charity. Charity cannot exist in the
hearts of many without outwardly overflowing ; it is a fire that dies for want
of being fed, and the food of charity is good works. Since we have been in
existence we have distributed about two thousand four hundred francs, some
books, and a pretty good quantity of old clothes. Our resources consist in
the collection we make every Tuesday, the alms of some charitable persons
who come to the rescue of our good-will, and our cast-off clothes. As it is
possible that at the beginning of the new scholastic year our numbers will be
increased to a hundred, we shall be obliged to divide, and split into severalsec-
tions, which will all periodically hold a common meeting. When those new
arrangements have been made, I will let ycu know. For, notwithstanding
what 1 have just been saying of the difference which exists between our special
aims, this should not diminish their union and harmony ; on the contrarj',
just as divergent rays tend to the same centre, so should our various efforts,
tending to different points, resolve themselves into the same motive and pro-
ceed from the same principle. We must therefore be united so as to double
our stren ^th ; we must hold frequent communication with each other, so that
we may all be stimulated and made proud and happy in common by the suc-
cesses of each individually. In writing to our little society in Paris I begged
leave to draw up a list of correspondents with your name at the head, and
then those of your friends. This will not be an empty academical form, but
a real correspondence, for which you may count on my punctuality as I count
upon your friendship."

On his return to Paris after the hohdays he writes to the
same friend :

'*I did not forget the report that you asked me for. Our President, M.
Bailly, looked for it amongst his papers, but has failed to find it ; the docu-
ment must therefore be lost. It is no great misfortune ; there was perhaps a
germ of pride in this written resume of our work, and God, who forbids our
left hand to know what our right hand does, may have allowed us to lose a
title-deed whose only use was to gratify a foolish vanity. Charity should
never look back, but always forward, for the number of her past benefits is
always very small, while the present and future wants that she has to relieve
are infinite. Look at the philanthropical societies, with their meetings, re-
ports, ?ummings-up, bills, and accounts ; before they are a year old they have
volu .les of minutes and so forth. Philanthropy is a vain woman who likes to
deck herself out in her good works and admire herself in the glass ; whereas
charity is a mother whose eyes rest lovingly on the child at her breast, who

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 87

has no thought of self, but forgets her beauty in her love. Neither do I con-
sider this loss of much consequence to you. It is better that you should raise
your work by your own strength, under the inspiration of your own heart,
according to local circumstances, and under the guidance of the venerable
priest who presides over you ; with all this you will easily do without a model
which was at best very imperfect ; you will not do as we did, but better than
we did.

" This prediction is no flattery ; it is simply the expression of the feeling
inspired by your letter, of that apostolic fire which has inflamed the Christian
world, and of which your soul has caught the sacred spark. It would have
been selfish to keep such a pleasure all to myself ; I felt I must communicate
your glowing words to our httle gathering, so I took your letter with me, and
read the greater part of it to our colleagues and the cure of the parish, who
had kindly come to take the chair that day. The impression it produced will
be best conveyed to you in the words of one of the members, who exclaimed,
* Truly this is the faith and the charity of the first centuries ! ' Oh ! the faith
and charity of the first centuries 1 It is not too much for ours. Are we not,
like the Christians of those early times, thrown into the midst of a corrupt
civilization and a society that is falling to pieces ? Cast your eyes on the
world around you. The rich and the happy ones, are they much better than
those who made answer to St. Paul, 'We will hear you another time ' ? And
the poor and the people, are they much more enlightened and better .off
than those to whom the apostles first preached the Gospel ? Equal evils,
therefore, demand an equal remedy ; the world has grown cold, and it is for
us Christians to rekindle the vital fire ; for us also to reopen the era of mar-
tyrdom. For to be a martyr is possible to each of us ; to be a martyr is to
give ourselves up to God and our brethren, to give to Heaven all that we have
received — our goods, our blood, our whole being. This offering is in the
hands of each of us ; we can all make this sacrifice. It only remains to choose
the altar whereon we will lay it, the divinity at whose shrine we will conse-
crate our youth and the days that are to follow ; let us decide whether our
rendezvous shall be in the temple of the idol of egotism, or in the sanctuary
of God and of humanity. Humanity in our times is very much like the tra-
veller in the Gospel : while journeying along the road traced out for it by
Christ, it was seized upon by robbers, by wicked men, who despoiled it of all
it possessed, the treasure of faith and love, and then left it nak-d and moan-
ing, lying by the wayside. The priests and the Levites passed, and this time,
cis they were true priests and Levites, they drew nigh to the sufferer whom
they fain would have healed, but in his delirium he did not recognize them,
and thrust them from him.

" Let us, in our turn, poor Samaritans that we are, weak and of little faith,
draw near to the wounded man. Perhaps he will not take fright at us, being
only what we are, but will let us try to probe his wounds and pour balm into
them ; let us breathe words of consolation and peace into his ear, and then,
when his eyes are opened, we will place him in the hands of those whom God
has constituted the guardians and physicians of souls, and who are, so to
speak, our hosts on the road of our pilgrimage here below, since they feed out

88 Life and Works of Fretieri(- Ozanam.

famislied spirits with the word of life and the promise of a better world This
is the task that is before us, this is the divine vocation to which Providence
calls us."'

The resuming of Ozanam's studies was the signal for a
return of the old scruples and anxieties from which we have
already seen him suffering. He writes to one of his college
friends, M. Dufieux :

" My conscience does not spare me. I may say it to my own shame and the
greater glory of God, nobody perhaps has received more than I have : good
inspirations, holy desires, noble ambitions ; there is no virtue, there is not a
good work, moral or scientific, to which this mysterious inner voice has not at
some time or other invited me ; there is perhaps not a vine in the Father's
vineyard that has been surrounded with more care, and to which He may with
greater justice address those words, ' Quid potui facere vineae et non feci ? '
But I, like an ill weed as I am, have not expanded under this divine breath,
nor struck my roots deep into the soil that has so lovingly worked all around
me. At this very moment, when the call from above is sounding in my ears,
when I feel inspiration withdrawing from me as it were in warning, even at
this moment I cannot ivill, I cannot do, and I feel the weight of daily neglected
responsibility gathering on my head.

" I pour out to you my feelings as they come, without order or forethought ;
but that you may the better believe me, and that your indulgent affection may
not attribute this confession of weakness to a moment of passing excitement, I
will explain myself more clearly.

" There are two things especially that fire us young Christians with a gene-
rous ardor ; these are science and virtue, I was taught early to love both, and
I fancied myself made for them. I had resolved on deeper studies and a more
complete moral reform for those two years that I have to remain iu the capi-
tal ; I placed my hopes under the auspices of our celestial Mother, and I
trusted much in my own good will. Well, since then three months have
slipped away, and here I am with my hands empty ! Continual malaise and
wearisome efforts began to quench my ardor, and when I at last found my-
self with full leisure and all needful facilities, I fell into a state of languor
from which I cannot rouse myself. Study, that I so loved formerly, now fatigues
me ; my pen is like lead in my fingers ; I can no longer write. Strength,
that gift of the Holy Spirit so necessary to the men of this age if they are to
traverse its perils without failing, strength is not in me. I am blown about by
every wind of my imagination. Piety is a yoke to me, prayer a mere habit of
the lips, the practice of Christianity a duty which I accomplish with
cowardice, the last branch I cling to so as not to roll to the bottom of th"
abyss, but whose nourishing fruits I do not cull. I see young men of my age
advancing proudly in the path of real progress, while I hang back, despairing
of ever following them, and spending in idle lamentation the time I should be
up and doing."

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 89

The month of March, 1835, which opened in such depres-
sion for Ozanam, had a great consolation and triumph in store
for him, as we shall see in the next cliapter.

In the autumn of this year we find the following letter

TO LALLIER,

" Lyons, September zt,, 1835.

•' . . . You know I left Paris on the 12th, as I was anxious to be at
Lyons for my mother's/tjVtf on the 15th ; and also to hear Mass on that day, it
being the/tV^ of the Blessed Virgin. I had therefore to halt at Macon, twelve
miles from hence, to assist at the Holy Sacrifice, hoping 10 find a coach that
would take me on later in the day. But I reckoned without my host ; there
was no conveyance to be had ..but shanks' mare, and so I had to spend the
beautiful day of ttie Assumption tramping over the dusty road ; at last, within
a few leagues of Lyons, I came up with a shaky old trap that jogged me to
my destination by eight in the evening, just as they were all assembled to
wish my mother joy — father, mother, brothers, uncle, aunt, cousin^, all were
there, and I leave you to guess what a joyous meeting it was.

"But a certain sadness was mmgled with this first embrace. The fears I
had entertained about my mother's health were but too well founded. You
remember that terrible day, and the sweet letter that I showed you ? My
terrors and grief were shared in the same degree by my father and my
brothers. For two months my mother was a prey to a languid exhaustion of
which it was impossible to foretell the end. Some grave symptoms were added
to this weakness, and the fears of those who were near her at Lyons were no
less acute than mine in Paris. Happily, before my return a great improve-
ment had taken place ; she is no longer ill, but she still bears the traces of her
recent sufferings. When I kissed her, I was frightened at the thinness of her
cheeks. I am at rest for the moment, but I cannot help trembling for the
future. I cannot but see that this precious health is seriously shaken ; that
her sensitiveness has become excessive ; that the most trifling thing distresses
and alarms her; that her angelic sweetness and goodness are constantly
struggHng against a nervous and diseased organization. And with all this
she redoubles her good works, and imposes on herself an amount of fatigue
which I, young and strong as I am, would recoil from. The thought of next
winter fills me with anxiety. Dear friend, if you have two places to spare for
me in your prayers, give the first one to my mother, and the other to myself ;
if you have only one, let it be for my mother ; to pray for her is to pray for
me.

"Added to these personal anxieties I found a general impression of terror
prevailing at Lyons. The cholera, which has been making such fearful
ras'ages in the southern provinces, seemed to be steadily advancing to our
gates. It had come up the Rhone, within twelve leagues of our city, driving
before it crowds of fugitives, who flew to us with the most frightful accounts,
and brouifht with them a degree of terror worse even than the plague itself,

go Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

Our impressionable city was terribly excited. The ignorant and brutal part
of the population began to talk of poisoned waters, and to make ready for the
invasion of the pestilence by riots and insurrection ; while, on the other hand,
a multitude of the faithful besieged Notre Dame de Fourvieres, singing peni-
tent canticles within the church and in the open air outside ; while numbers of
devoted persons presented themselves to serve as nurses for the poor when the
epidemic should have actually come. Fifteen hundred had their names in-
scribed beforehand.

" Well, God has for the second time glorified His Mother and consoled our
city ; once more His hand, which was raised to threaten, has been opened to
bless. The most ancient church of old Gaul, the church of Lyons, is proud,
happy, and grateful for the magnificent privilege which has been granted to
her. The name of the Dame de Fourvieres no longer brings a smile to the
lips of the sceptic, who cannot but think that to her protection he owes per-
haps his life."

Ozanam alludes here to a circumstance which is spoken
of to this day with emotions of lively gratitude by the
faithful of Lyons, and with respect by all. In 1831 the
cholera was raging fiercely in the surrounding towns, and had
reached within a short distance of the city. The panic-
stricken population rushed in thousands up the hillside of
Fourvieres, and placing themselves under the protection of
the Mother of God, vowed to commemorate their gratitude
for their deliverance, if she obtained it, by painting a me-
morial-picture in her honor, and placing it in the church.
The vow was heard ; the pestilence advanced to the very
gates of Lyons, and then suddenly halted ; not a single case
occurred in the city. \\\ 1835 the same miraculous pro-
tection was granted to a similar manifestation of faith in
Mary's power and clemency ; nor has the charmed circle
which she drew around the favored city ever been broken
since. Li recent visitations the cholera has gone all around
it. ravaging the immediate neighborhood, but never entering
Lyons. This fact is so well known, that as soon as a cry "is
raised announcing the approach of the dreaded visitor, great
numbers flock in from the towns and villages, thus, humanly
speaking, multiplying the chances of contagion by fright and
overcrowding.

CHAPTER X.

1835-6.

The extraordinary success of the Abbe Lacordaire's Con-
ferences the year before had caused alarm in grave and
influential quarters. The clergy looked on with a certain
vague uneasiness at first, and then with absolute terror, at the
popularity which was drawing all the intellect of Paris to the
feet of the young preacher. Not a word was to be said
against his orthodoxy, but the form and manner of its enuncia-
tion was novel, and novelty was next to heresy. Nothing
was held in greater horror at archiepiscopal headquarters than
novelty. Lacordaire, who, before the end of the Conferences
at the College, had been overpowered by invitations from the
various cures in Paris to go and preach in their churches, went
to consult the Archbishop as to which he sliould accept, and
was dismayed to find the latter reluctant to let him continue
the ministry of preaching at all. The Abbe Buquet counted
on his resuming his Conferences at Stanislas in the course of
the year, but the Archbishop appeared to hesitate at consent-
ing even to this. He did not, however, venture to say so at
once ; he merely requested that Lacordaire would refrain from
preaching anywhere during Lent; "Not," he added, "that
I am jealous of talent, but it is better not to provoke invidious
comparisons."

Lacordaire submitted without a word, and promised that
he would not speak in public during Lent, but the Arch-
bishop still hesitated about the Conferences, and said he must
have eight days to think the matter over.

Meantime the enemies of the new apostle were bringing all
influence to bear against him in the mind of the Archbishop.

91

92 Life and Works of Frederic Ozafiam.

It was alleged that even the Government had taken fright
and looked in displeasure at the spirit of revolution, nay, of
anarchy, which pervaded the language of Lacordaire. It
dreaded the effect of this exciting eloquence on the young
men of Paris, and it was to be feared that, if the Conferences
were resumed, they would witness the painful scandal of an
intervention by the authorities. There was not the smallest
foundation for any such fears on the part of the Government,
and this representation of them was immensely exaggerated ;
but Monseigneur de Quelen, who did not see exactly where
to distinguish between malice and hearsay, was exceedingly
disturbed, so that when at the end of a week Lacordaire re-
turned, he found him more nervous and vacillating than be-
fore. The fact of his having no definite grounds for his pro-
hibition made it seem unjust and cruel. Lacordaire defended
himself firmly, but with a certain calm indifference as to the
issue. The Archbishop admitted that none of the theologians
who had assisted at the Conferences had detected a single
flaw in any part of his doctrine. " Then, Monseigneur,"
argued Lacordaire, " since my orthodoxy is above suspicion,
what signifies the divided opinion of parties? What work,
since the foundation of Christianity, was ever accomplished
without giving rise to divided opinions? "

As to the political complications upon which his opponents
laid stress, he denied their existence, but observed that if on
investigation they were found to exist, he would for the present
reneunce preaching anywhere. The Archbishop shrank from
imposing this sacrifice upon the zealous young priest, and
above all upon the Catholic youth who were clamoring im-
patiently for him. If he had acted on the impulse of his own
judgment, he would have desired Lacordaire to go on as he
had begun; but his judgment was warped by pressure from
those around him, and by his ingrained horror of novelty.
The policy of the higher clergy at that time was to let well
enough alone, to make no stir, above all to do nothing new,
and to avoid giving any new impulse to the public mind, lest

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 93

it should provoke opposition which it might be difficult to
appease. Such a pohcy was, as we have seen, the very anti-
podes of that which animated Ozanam and his friends, who
looked to Lacordaire as the herald of their cause.

But Lacordaire, much as it grieved him to disappoint these
eager young spirits, and the multitude of others outside them,
whose souls were longing for bread, refrained from pressing
Monseigneur de Quelen too hard. When they were parting,
the latter said, " I don't forbid you to resume the Conferences ;
I cannot do it; but reflect, examine, take counsel." He was
very kind, but agitated and undecided. Lacordaire left his
presence mentally determined not to resume them. He com-
municated this decision the same day to two or three intimate
friends, who confirmed him in it. A few days' reflection,
however, made them change their opinion as to its wisdom.

Lacordaire, likewise, who felt free to decide for himself,
since the Archbishop had left him the right to do so, began to
ask himself if it was just to others as well as to himself to dis-
appoint these ardent expectations. "If," argued his friends,
"you give up now, you give up for ever; the Arclibishop has
not forbidden you ; on the contrary, personally he sympa-
thizes with you. Why yield to paltry cavilling and prejudice ? "
A weightier argument than this was, that in lapsing into
silence he was abandoning a mission which no one else could
fulfil.

While Lacordaire was still hesitating, drawn one way by
tlie d Mre to do whatever was most agreeable to his Arch-
bishop, and the other by the longing to continue a fruitful
ministry, the Superior of the College Stanislas received a
message from the Archbishop informing him that the Con-
ferences would not be resumed that year. Lacordaire was
immediately apprised of this, and was wounded to the quick
by what seemed to him a want of frankness and even justice
on the part of Monseigneur de Quelen. He wrote to him
and protested respectfully, but with the warmth of just indig-
nation, against the siigma wliich this direct prohibition cast

Q4 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

upon him. " Monseigneur," he cried, " I have but one talent ;
if I may not utiUze it, I am reduced to nothingness as a
priest. ... Monseigneur, I ask for justice at your hands;
I claim the one possession, the one honor of a priest — the
right to preach Jesus Christ, until at least I fail in orthodoxy,
which is the first of all things, the thing which, with God's
help, I will never fail in, never at least wilfully." There was
no doubt a leaven of human feeling in this remonstrance; it
would have been more perfect in the priest to have bowed
down and accepted the humiliation in silence; but we must,
on the other hand, consider that, at a period when manly in-
dependence was at a discount in all classes, the dignified
bearing of the Abbe Lacordaire was a fine and salutary ex-
ample. Monseigneur de Quelen, however, could not see it
in this light; he was shocked at tlie vivacity of his young
subordinate, but replied, in a tone of gentleness and dignity,
that he feared the perils of improvisation, and proposed to
him, as a condition of resuming his Conferences, that he
should write them out beforehand, and submit the MS. to the
censure of certain persons, who should be named for the pur-
pose. Lacordaire knew from experience that sucli a plan
would utterly paralyze his powers; he Said so, and, tlianking
the Archbishop for the intended kindness, declared his deter-
mination to renounce the Conferences altogether.

All this occurred in December. The sacrifice once made,
Lacordaire was calm and satisfied. He could not help feel-
ing, at the same time, that his position was perilously com-
promised. If the Archbishop allowed him to remain under
this prohibition, it was tantamount to an interdict.

Ozanam and his friends meanwhile were in despair.
Measuring the event by their own regrets and disappoint-
ment, they magnified it into a positive disaster. This feeling
was shared by the Abbe Liautard, the founder of the College
Stanislas, and its late Superior, who had made their cause his
own. Whatever the result might be, this was a great moral
victory, for the Abbe Liautard was a man whose opinion

Life and Works of Frederic Ozaiiam. g^

had greater weight perhaps than that of any ecclesiastic of the
day in France; the clergy held liim in high esteem for his
zeal, piety, and learning, and the Government had, more than
once, been compelled to reckon with him, on account of his
influence with the noblest families in France, whose sons he
had educated. The Abbe had seen, and appreciated better
than any one, the effect of Lacordaire's Conferences in the
college chapel; he had rejoiced as at the advent of a new
prophet, and he was proportionately indignant on seeing the
Archbishop's better judgment overruled by the puerile policy
and petty jealousies of a narrow-minded party. He wrote a
vigorous expostulation on the subject, condemning boldly the
weakness of the Archbishop's conduct and administration,
and this document was circulated in manuscript amongst the
clergy of Paris, on whom it produced a great effect.

Early in January, about a month after Lacordaire's letter
to the Archbishop, when he had ceased almost to think of
the painful episode, and was once more quietly absorbed in
his studies, he was one day walking through the gardens of
the Luxembourg, when a friend accosted him, and, after the
usual salutations, remarked irrelevantly, " Why don't you go
and see the Archbishop, and have an explanation with him ? "
The Abbe replied that there was nothing further to explain,
and that he had no pretext for intruding on his Grace. Be-
fore he had gone many steps further he met another friend,
who said almost in the same words, " Why don't you go and
see Monseigneur de Quelen ? I am sure he would be glad
to see you, and to make it up with you,"

Lacordaire, who was prone enough to see the finger of
Providence in the events of daily life, was struck by the
coincidence, and resolved on the spot to go at once to the
Rue St. Jacques. * " It was not the portress who opened
the door," he says ; " it was a choir nun, who liked me,
because, as she said, every one was down on me. Mon-

• See Foisset's Life of Lacordaire, vol. i. cliap. viii., for this incident and the foregoing
details.

g6 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanatn.

seigneur had forbidden his door, it seemed, * but,' said the
sister, 'I will go and tell him it is you, and perhaps he will
see you.' The answer was favorable. I found the Arch-
bishop walking up and down the room with a triste, pre-
occupied air. He gave me but a slight sign of welcome, and
I turned and walked up and down with him without his
uttering a word. After a long silence, he stopped suddenly,
and, looking at me with a scrutinizing glance, said, ' I have a
notion of confiding to you the pulpit of Notre Dame; would
you accept it ? ' The sudden overture, the motive of which
was entirely unknown to me, did not dazzle me in the least.
I replied that the time for preparation was short, the theatre
was solemn, that though successful before a small audience,
I might easily fail before an assembly of four thousand souls.
I ended by asking for twenty-four hours to reflect."

What meantime had worked the sudden revulsion in the
mind of the Archbishop ? He had that very morning seen
the Abbe Liautard's pamphlet, and had just finished reading
it when Lacordaire was unexpectedly announced. The idea
of answering and confounding his own accusers, of appoint-
ing Lacordaire to the pulpit of Notre Dame for the Lenten
sermons, occurred to the Archbishop a moment before, and
the coincidence of the young preacher's arrival when his
mind was thus occupied about him seemed providential, and
Monsieur de Quelen carried out the impulse as we have seen.

It is needless to say how triumphantly the unpremeditated
step was justified by the results. Never had the venerable
walls of Notre Dame witnessed so magnificent a victory from
its pulpit over the hearts of men. The young men of Paris
were jubilant, none more so than Ozanam.

"These Conferences on the Church, her infallibility, her
constitution, her history, etc., were all most beautiful," he
writes ; *' but the last was eloquent beyond anything I ever
heard. Monseigneur de Quelen, who was present at all of
them, addressed at the end his solemn thanks to M. Lacor-
daire, and named him canon of the Cathedral. This does

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanatn. 97 ^

indeed pour balm into our wounds ! " Nothing could be
more generous than the way in which the Archbishop gave
this pubhc testimony of his admiration to the man whose in-
fluence he Iiad for a moment so mistrusted. When the last
words of the final Conference were spoken, and the vast
assembly was about to kneel to receive the blessing of the
Prelate, the latter rose, and with that incomparable majesty
which lent such weight to his words in private and in public,
expressed his thanks to him, '• on whom God had bestowed
piety and eloquence, and, still more, that virtue which con-
stitutes the priest — obedience ! " He called him, moreover,
his " faithful and excellent friend, the joy and consolation of
his heart."

Looking back on those glorious days when the young
ranks of St. Vincent de Paul closed, like the advance-guard
of a victorious army, round the pulpit of Notre Dame, Lacor-
daire once exclaimed, with emotion, " Ah ! Ozanam is an
ancestor ! "

Ozanam, in his turn, claimed for his illustrious friend a
share in his own paternity towards the militia of charity, and
always spoke of him as one of its early fathers. He certainly
proved its chivalrous defender in the hour of peril. When
a despicable cabal threatened it with suppression by the
Government, Lacordaire, from his pulpit, appealed to the
Catholic heart of France in behalf of those young men " who
had placed their chastity under the guardianship of charity —
the fairest of virtues under the fairest of guardianships."

" What blessings," he exclaimed, " will not this knighthood
of youth, purity, and fraternity draw down upon France in
behalf of the poor ! Let the gratitude of the country prove
at least the safeguard of its liberty."

We will close this chapter with a letter of Ozanam's:

" Paris, 16 Afay.
" In these days we have need of great virtues and strong- men. It is true
the reign of evil is being undermined in all directions, and the time is drawing
near when truth will be hailed anew as queen of the world ; but so long as

gS Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

the earthly life of humanity lasts, evil will still live in the midst of it ; evil is
always abroad somewhere on the earth — sometimes as a tyrant, sometimes as
a slave ; and its efforts are never so formidable as when it sees its empire
threatened and in danger of escaping from its grasp ; every religious reaction
is sure to provoke a corresponding reaction of impiety. Thus it is that, while
the idols of the eighteenth century see their shrines deserted, while our tem-
ples, so long forsaken, see their soHtude repeopled, and the Abbe Lacordaire
thunders forth the Word of God over an assembly of six thousand men,
crowded into the mighty nave of Notre Dame, while these things are being
accomplished, rationalism is not idle ; it is busy muliplying its periodical lite-
rature, organizing its seductive propaganda, casting its nets round the youth
of the day, besieging our most illustrious men, causing the fall and ruin of
those who but yesterday were our glory, dethroning the Abbe de Lamennais
from the pure heights where faith and genius had placed him, making us
tremble for the virginal muse of Lamartine. These things are sad, but they
are true. We Catholics are punished for putting our trust rather in the
genius of our great men than in the power of our God ; we are punished for
having prided ourselves too much in them personally, for having met, with
too much scorn, the taunts of the unbelievers, and for holding up, to justify
ourselves in their eyes, not the Cross of our Redeemer, but our philosophers
and our poets ; we are punished for having leaned upon those human reeds,
melodious as they were, and they have broken in our hand. Henceforth we
are taught to look higher for our help ; it is not a fragile staff that we need in
journeying through the world ; it is two wings, the wings that bear the angels
— faith and charity. We must make haste to fill the places that have become
vacant. Genius has failed us ; let us be led by grace ; we must be courageous
and persevering ; we must love unto death ; we must fight unto death. ..."

CHAPTER XL

1837-

OzANAM terminated his legal studies by the usual examina-
tion, and with such success that he resolved to go up, as
soon as possible, for the degree of Doctor of Law. The bar
was now open to him, but he continued undecided as to his
real vocation. He could not divest himself of the feeling
that in becoming a barrister he. was betraying his true calling;
that Literature, not Law, was the mistress who claimed his
first allegiance, and who would best requite his services.
Reason, interest, the wishes of his family, all pleaded in
favor of the bar, but he himself was conscious of an insur-
mountable repugnance to the profession. Might not this be
a warning and a presentiment ?

*' The moment of choosing our destiny is a solemn one, and everything
that is solemn is sad," he said to Lallier. " I am suffering from this absence
of a vocation which shows me the dust and stones of every road, and the
flowers of none. The one to which I am nearest just now, the bar, strikes
me as especially uninviting. I have talked it over with several legal men, I
have seen what one must be satisfied to put up with in order to get business,
and what annoyances, on the other hand, accompany the business. People
are fond of saying that barristers are the most independent of men ; they are
at least as much slaves as the rest, for they have two sets of tyrants equally
insupportable — the attorneys to begin with, and clients by and by."

Duty to his father, who had made great sacrifices to keep
him for five years in Paris, pointed emphatically to the bar,
however, as his legitimate career ; so Ozanam, conquering all
personal antipathies, bravely entered on his duties as a bar-
rister. The briefs were rare, and the few that came were not
followed by any brilliant results. Here is his own account
of these beginnings :

" Will it interest you to hear something of the kind of life I am leading
now ? It is always the same odd life, divided between interrupted studies and

99

lOO Life and Works of Frederic Ozauam.

wearisome occupations. I reckon irreverently amongst the latter the few briefs
that take me to the Courts. The famous case of interdiction that was pending
when you left has been pleaded twice since then, and will be decided perhaps
to-morrow. On two other occasions I distinguished myself at the bar of the
Civil Tribunal and at that of the Police Correctionnelle for some trifling
cases. This week the Assizes have given me plenty to do. On Monday a
poor devil, who was defended by me, got condemned to five years' hard labor,
not so much for the crime in question, which was not proved, as for his ante-
cedents, which were villanous beyond a doubt. The day before yesterday the
scene changed ; and if your evil genius had conducted you to the great hall of
the Hotel de Ville, you would have beheld your most humble servant by the
side of Pitrat, the director of the Gazette dii Lyonnais, cited for having at-
tacked the King's Government ; you would have heard a lengthy harangue
from the King's counsel, invoking the utmost rigor of the law against the
pitiful little newspaper, and the young advocate endeavoring, according to his
laudable custom, to maintain a neutral position between the accuser and the
accused, to justify the latter without exasperating the former ; you would have
heard a statesman of four-and-twenty delivering judgment, with unblushing
audacity, on the highest questions of constitutional law, and on the weightiest
contemporaneous facts. I cannot tell whether, in company with almost the
entire audience, you would have counted, at the close of the proceedings, on
a verdict of acquittal ; but I know for a fact that, not being deaf, you would
have heard a sentence of condemnation, which, for not being unduly severe, was
none the less disappointing to the plaintiff and his counsel. I was very much
complimented on my speech ; but you know that my poor speechifying has the
luck to gain applause much oftener than conviction. Having now led you
through the most memorable scenes of the barristerial life I have been leading
these few months past, I leave you to guess the rest."

In the month of April Frederic went to Paris on account
of his approaching examination for the Doctorship of Letters.
He was recalled suddenly by the death of his father. It was
no ordinary love that Doctor Ozanani had inspired in his
children ; they not only revered him as their father, but looked
up to him as a model of all the Christian virtues. Frederic
was fond of tracing to his parents every moral and intellec-
tual gift he possessed, and this with genuine simplicity.
" You did not know him," he says to a friend, to whom he is
announcing his loss, "but if ever your indulgence found any-
thing in me worthy of esteem or love, attribute it to my father,
to his advice and example." This idea was not the result of
present sorrow; it was a conviction which he retained all his
life. A month before his death, summing up all the mercies

Life and Works of Firder'u Ozanatn. loi

and blessings of his life, he makes the following thanksgivnig
for his father :

•'Thou didst preserve his faith amidst many evil times. Through revolu-
tions, adversities, and in the soldiers' camp his nature remained noble ; he
maintained his sense of justice unimpaired, his cliarity to the poor unwearied.
I bear this witness to my father : when I was compelled to the sad duty of
looking into his accounts for the settlement of our inheritance, I found that
one-third of his visits had been made without remuneration, to the poor re-
cognized as such. He loved science, art, and labor, and he sought to inspire
us with the love of the good and the beautiful. When he left the Hussars
he had read the Bible of Dom Calmet from one end to the other ; he knew
Latin as few of us professors know it nowadays."

Frederic inherited probably from his father his great love
for the sacred text. He read the Bible himself in Hebrew
ever since he understood that tongue, and his mother was
fond of relating a little circumstance in which his knowledge
of it once served him rather humorously. Several Protestant
clergymen at Lyons were in the habit at one time of coming
to hold theological discussions with him. One day one of
them kept him four hours at it, the point in dispute being a
text which each interpreted differendy. At last Frederic ex-
claimed : " But why should a learned man like you argue
from a translation ? Let us get the Hebrew version and fight
it out over the original." His antagonist had to admit that
he was not a Hebrew scholar, and when Ozanam proceeded
to give his direct translation of the text he refused to accept
it, observing that he would consult some higher authority,
and then come back to finish the argument. *' But," the
mother of the young savant would add proudly, " he never
came back ! "

Frederic now devoted all his energies to comforting his
mother, and endeavoring to replace the protector who had
been taken from her when apparently she most needed him.

"Happy the man to whom God has given a holy mother!" he exclaims.
" But why is it decreed that in proportion as the halo of sanctity shines more
brightly round that beloved head the shadow of death draws near to it ? Why
in the languages of men is perfection synonymous with the end ? Why does
God give us nothing here below, but only lend to us ? O dear friend, pray

I02 Life 071 d Works of Fredrrk Ozanam.

with me that my mother may be spared to me ; that she may be spared to my
brothers, who also have such need of her; that this home, which you saw so
happy and so full of love, may not be laid desolate, filled with mourning, and
emptied of all joy, given as a spectacle of human vicissitudes, and made a
scandal for the unrighteous, who, seeing how severely Christian families are
dealt with, may ask in their insolence, ' Where then is the God in whom they
hoped ? ' Ubi est Deiis eorum ?

" It is in Him that I have placed all my hope, and I am resolved to follow
only the indications He gives me in the shifting circumstances of life.

" I continue by letters the steps 1 was taking in Paris. Meantime, I have
not neglected my literary labors ; they are always one of my most salutary
consolations. I am still busy on Dante. "

The steps to which he alludes had reference to a Professor-
ship of Commercial Law, which some influential persons had
proposed getting established at Lyons in order that Ozanam
should be named to it. The municipal body, amongst whom
he had many friends, received the suggestion cordially, and
immediately sent up a petition to that effect to the Minister
of Public Instruction at Paris. Some time must, however,
elapse before the affair could be definitely settled, and pend-
ing this Ozanam worked on diligently at his law business.

" I have now pleaded twelve times," he says ; " three times only before the
Civil Tribunal, where I gained my verdict each time. The emotions of plead-
ing are not without their charm, but the emoluments are slow in making their
appearance, and the relations with men of business are so painful, so humili-
ating, so unjust that I cannot get reconciled to them. Justice is the last moral
asylum, the last sanctuary of existing society, and to see it surrounded with
dirt is for me a source of indignation which is provoked at every instant. This
kind of life irritates me too much ; I nearly always corne back from Court
deeply wounded, for I find it as hard to resign myself to the sight of evil as
to its endurance. Yet I am far from entertaining the idea of renouncing a
profession which present circumstances render it more than ever essential for
me to persevere in. After the holidays I will commence a lesson of law to
three young fellows who are trop grauds seigneurs to go and sit on the
benches of the Ecole, and whose fees I shall be very happy to pocket,"

The necessity for securing some more definite and satisfac-
tory returns than these chance fees, and those which his occa-
sional briefs brought him, made Ozanam turn his eyes longingly
in the direction of the proposed chair of Law, which was being
zealously forwarded by his numerous friends both in Paris and

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 103

at Lyons. He was very sanguine as to the success of these
efforts, but tried to maintain himself in a state of placid indii-
ference.

" If," he says, " all these negotiations have no other result, they will at any
rate have proved to me the affection of my friends ; the good wishes of all
have helped on the efforts of many. Meantime I remain passive. I feel a
sort of religious awe, perhaps superstition, concerning the present uncertainty
of my destiny. Having once placed it in the hands of Providence, I fear to
meddle with it. It seems to me as though the success or failure of this affair
is to decide whether I shall remain in the world, or take leave of it when cir-
cumstances shall have set me free. You perceive from this how daring my
dreams are, and to what sacred heights they venture to soar. But in truth I
envy the lot of those who devote themselves without reserve to God and to
humanity. Again, on the other hand, the question of marriage presents it-
self frequently to my mind, and never without leaving behind it the most in-
credible repugnance. I am weaker than many others, and the wanderings of
my imagination might easily have carried my heart out of its depth, but some-
how I feel that there is a manly virginity which is not devoid of honor and a
certain charm, and that we abdicate this to a certain extent in conjugal union.
It may be tliat this feeling arises from an unjust contempt for women. Yet
Our Blessed Lady, and my mother, and a few others make me forgive a great
deal to those daughters of Eve. But I declare to you that in general I do not
understand them. Their sensibility is sometimes admirable, but their frivolity,
the inconsistency of their mind, is hopeless. Can you conceive anything
more capricious, more disjointed, than their conversation ? And then to ih'nk
of binding one's self without reserve and without end to the society of any
human creature, mortal, infirm, and wretched, let her be ever so perfect ! It
is the perpetual nature of the partnership which is to me so full of terror; this
is why I never can assist at a marriage without shedding tears, as at an ordi-
nation or a taking of the veil. I never could understand the gayety that one
generally sees at wedding^. . . . About a week ago a prolonged medita-
tion on my own wretchedness, internal and external, threw my mind into such
a state of perturbation that I was reduced to the impossibility of either think-
ing or acting. My brain was on fire, driven in every sense by the most dread-
ful thoughts and fancies. At last the excess of the evil compelled me to have
recourse to the pliysician — the physician, I mean, who has the secret of all hu-
man infirmities, as well as the balm of Divine grace. Well, when, with an
energy which I seldom display on such occasions, I had laid bare my misery
and my distress to the charitable man whom I address as ' father,' what do
you think he said to me ? He answered me in the words of the apostle :
Gaudete in Domino semper. You will admit that it was a strange reply. A
poor fellow has just had the greatest misfortune which can befall him in the
spiritual order, that of offending God ; the greatest misfortune which could
befall him in the natural order, that of losing his father ; he has an aged and
infirm mother, whose every movement, everj' look, every expression he watches

IC4 i'ife and Works of Frriienc Ozanam.

from day to day to see how long she is likely to be spared to him ; he finds
himself detached by absence or by death from many friends who were dear to
him ; he is, over and above all this, a prey to anxiety about a most precarious
future, overpowered with troubles and business of a most disagreeable na-
ture ; * if he falls back upon himself in order to escape from what is painful
without, he finds nothing but imperfections, weakness, and faults, . . .
and in the teeth of all this he is told, not to be resigned, to take comfort, but
to rejoice — gaudete semper ! It needs assuredly all the boldness, all the pious
insolence of Christianity to hold such language. And yet Christianity is
right."

The added dignity of Doctor of Law, which the young
barrister had acquired this year, does not seem to have at-
tached him more closely to the profession, which, so far,
yielded but slight encouragement ; clients continued scarce,
and during the following year he made but little head against
the difficulties of a beginner.

In a letter where he announces the approaching marriage
of a friend, Frederic observes that, in order to fortify himself
against the matrimonial contagion, he set off to visit la
Grande Chartreuse :

" I shall not attempt to tell all I saw ; suffice it to say that I beheld scenery
which I have not the talent to describe, and men whom I shall never have the
strength to imitate. The impression left by this pilgrimage, however, is very
different from what I anticipated. I had heard of nothing but sublime hor-
rors— torrents, precipices, deserts, frightful austerities ; instead of all this, I
found a delightful solitude, a magnificent vegetation, rich meadows, forests
where the green foliage of the beech intermingled with the gloomy shade of
the fir-trees, rocks on which roses flowered, rivulets bounding in elegant cas-
cades over beds of sward and moss, on every side masses of blue campanulas,
broad feathery ferns like diminutive palm-trees, flocks and herds on the
mountains, birds in the woods ; and there in the valley the mighty, majestic
monaster}- ; the monks with serene countenances beneath their antique cowl,
their features beaming with peace and happiness ; chants rising, full and har-
monious, at every hour of the day ; hymns ascending to Heaven in the silent
night-time, when crimes are being multiplied on the earth, and the vengeance
of God is provoked ; then the lovely chapels of Notre Dame at Casaliban, and
of Bruno, with their fountains and their memories of seven hundred years.
Perhaps it is a far-fetched fancy of mine, but La Chartreuse, suspended thus in
a hollow of the mountain, seems to me like a nest in the desert, where holy

• The duty of collecting and administering his father's limited means had devolved entirely on
Frederic, and brought his sensitive nature in contact with much selfishness and worldly hant
ncss.

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanaui. 105

souls are gathered together and hatched under the maternal wings of religion
until they have attained their maturity, when they peacefully take flight to
heaven.

" Religion, like a mother full of indulgent kindness, as she is, has surround-
ed this sacred nest with all the harmonies of nature and all the graces of crea-
tion. And it is a fact worthy of remark that hermits and monks of all times,
while cutting themselves off from the artificial pleasures of society, and exiling
themselves from the tumult and enjoyments of the city, and maltreating their
flesh, never denied themselves the delights of the eyes, but chose for their soli-
tude picturesque sites, extensive views, and magnificent landscapes. This re-
mark is verified at every step in Italy, where every other mountain top is
crowned with a monastery. It was the same in our old France long ago.
Wherever there was a bold, overhanging mountain, a smiling valley, a forest
with sombre shade, the traveller was sure to descry a steeple surmounted by a
cross, and to meet traces of the anchorite's sandals on the lonely pathways.

•' Nature, in her virginity, is profoundly Christian ; she abounds in sol-
emn sadness and ineffable consolations ; she speaks but of death and resurrec-
tion, of past faults and future glorifications. Mountains especially have a
voice which appeals to the soul, of which they are in a certain sense the image
— riches and nakedness, immeasurable height and fathomless abysses, im-
mense disorder, traces of bygone convulsions, soaring peaks, efforts to reach
the skies, ever powerless, ever renewed I Is not all this a symbol of our life
here below ? Mountains, with their variety, resemble human nature, as the
ocean, in its immensity, resembles the Divine nature. So it is that the globe,
which we tread under our feet, is a tablet on which are written, in indelible
characters, the lessons of a sublime philosophy, and this philosophy is none
other than that which is written in letters no less indelible in the pages of the
Gospel."

To some who knew Frederic from his childhood, and
witnessed his piety, and his enthusiasm for the silent, heroic
life of the cloister, it was rather a surprise that he manifested
no signs of a vocation in that direction ; but this sympathy
was, in truth, more ideal than practical. Pure as his heart
was, and sustained as was tlie flight of his soul in those bright
and lofty regions, there was in his nature a chord of human
tenderness which had hitherto remained silent, and only now,
for the first time, began to warn him of its presence by certain
faint vibrations which he confides to a friend, who has writ-
ten to inform him of his intended marriage :

" Love has this in common with the divine nature, that it gives without im-
poverishing itself, that it communicates itself without grossing less, that it
multiplies itself, is present in many places at the same time, and that its inten-

1 06 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

sity augments in proportion as it expands. In your wife you will love first
God, whose precious and admirable work she is, and then humanity, that race
of Adam of whom she is the pure and gentle daughter ; her tenderness will be
your consolation in days of sorrow, and you will draw courage from her ex-
ample in moments of peril ; you will be her guardian angel, and she will be
yours. Henceforth you will know no more faintheartedness, no more discou-
ragement, nor any of those vain terrors which are apt to seize upon us at cer-
tain moments of our lives, for you will no longer be alone ; you will never
again be alone ; the union you are about to contract will be immortal ; what
God has once united He will not part ; He will surround with one glory in
heaven those whom He made companions here below in the same exile.

" But I am stammering in a language which I do not know, and talking of
things which have not been revealed to me. With me, imagination was de-
veloped early, but sensibility much later. Although I am at what is called
the age of the passions, I have as yet scarcely felt their first approach. My
poor head has had to suffer a good deal, but my heart has as yet known no af-
fections but those of kindred and friendship. And yet it seems to me, for
some time past, that I am conscious of symptoms that are the foreshadowing
of a new order of sentiment, and I am frightened at it. I feel a void growing
within me which neither friendship nor study can fill. I know not who is des-
tined to fill it. Will it be God, or will it be a creature ? If it is to be a crea-
ture, I pray that she may present herself as late as possible, when I shall have
become worthy of her. I pray that she may bring with her just enough of ex-
ternal charms to leave no room for regret ; but, above all, I pray that she may
be endowed with an excellent soul, with great virtues ; that she may be infi-
nitely better than I am ; that she may lead me upwards, and never let me de-
scend ; that she may be courageous, because I am often pusillanimous ; that
she may be fervent, because I am lukewarm in the things of God ; and, lastly,
that she may be compassionate, so that I may not have to blush before her on
account of my inferiority. Such are my dreams, but, as I have said, nothing
is more impenetrable to me than my own future."

Ozanam began now to realize the difficulty for him,
amounting to impossibility, of combining the profession of
the bar with tlie pursuit of literature, as he understood it.

"... Once upon a time," he says, "I used to flatter myself that my
life might be divided in equal portions between action and study, one half
given up to the tumult of business, the other devoted to the peaceful cultiva-
tion of letters ; but now I find myself fatally impelled to the painful alterna-
tive of abandoning one or other of these careers, which I had fondly hoped to
combine. My poor head is not big enough to hold one train of thought with-
out turning out all rivals. Literature can never be a relaxation for me. You
have seen with your own eyes what it costs me to write ; and yet, whether
from self-love or some other better motive, I cannot bring myself to bid a
final farewell to that severe mistress who makes me pay so dearly for her in-
tercourse. On the other hand, I feel that if I had devoted exclusively to the

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 107

Btudy of law all the faculties God has pven me during the five years' so-
journ in Paris, I might have attained to a position at the bar at which I can
now never hope to arrive."

While suffering from this uncertainty and agitation, Oza-
nam was always ready to combat in others a like sense of de-
pression and discouragement. "■ Yes," he says to a fellow-
student, who was hesitating at that point where the roads of
life diverge — " yes, we are useless servants, but we are ser-
vants, and the wages are given only on condition that we do
the work in the vineyard of the Lord in that precise place
that is assigned to us. Yes, life is contemptible, if we con-
sider the use we make of it ; but not if we calculate the use
we may make of it if we look upon it as the most perfect work
of the Creator — the sacred garment with which the Divine
humanity clothed Himself. Oh ! then life is beautiful, and
worthy of all reverence and love. Let us pray for one an-
other, my dear friend ; let us mistrust our mistrust, our ennuis,
and our sadness. Let us follow with simplicity the lead of
our merciful Providence, satisfied just to see the stone on
which we place our foot at each successive step, and without
trying to discover the whole length of tlie road, nor its turns
and windings."

His own cares and anxieties left abundant room in his
thoughts for those of others. He had taken great interest in
the proposed journey of a young artist companion, M. Jan-
mot, to Italy, and, after giving him all the hints he could be-
forehand as to the best way of profiting to the full by his
opportunity, he goes over the ground in imagination with
him on the traveller's return.

" . . . I assume that when this letter reaches you it will find you still under
the impression of the delightful journey you have just made through Umbria.
If I am not mistaken, it is one of the most beautiful countries of beautiful
Italy ; the majesty of great mountains crowning fair and smiling valleys ; con-
trasting climates ranged as in an amphitheatre to make room for all the riches
of vegetation from the pine and the oak to the orange-tree and the aloe ; cities
planted or suspended here and there in the most imposing attitudes, and every
city, every hill, every rivulet, every stone abounding in memories : Spoleto,
whose bumble gates remained closed cigainst Hannibal, while Capua's fell

1 08 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

back at the first sound of his footsteps ; the lake of Trasimena, where two
giant peoples fought with such fell fury that, while the fight raged, an earth-
quake destroyed whole towns without its being felt ; Orvieto and its Etruscan
antiquities, the inheritance of a civilization that passed away and left no his-
tory behind it ; the lonely lake of Bolsena, and the island where a queen died
of hunger. And then the Christian traditions that have purified and em-
balmed all these places ! Here we have the miracle of Bolsena immortalized
by Raphael ; there the marvellous legend of St. Margaret of Cortona ; but be-
yond and above all floats the great memory of St. Francis. I don't remember
whether it is at Foligno that they show you the rose-tree on whose thorns he
lay an entire night, and which ever since remains laden with flowers perpet-
ually renewed. It was on Monte Alverno that the glorious stigmata were im-
printed on his hands and feet. It was along the roads through which you
passed that he used to go calling to the little birds to come and sing the praises
of God ; it was there that he gave his cloak in exchange for the lamb which the
butchers were leading to the slaughter. But it is, above all, Assisi that is full
of him; Assisi and its cloister, that contained formerly six thousand monks,
and its two churches, symbol of the twofold life of the saint, one terrestrial
and mysterious, the other immortal and resplendent — its two churches, where
the inspired painting of the middle ages unfolds itself from its cradle to its
maturity, from Cimabue and Giotto to the days of Perugino and his disciple.
. . . And we, my dear friend, shall we do nothing to resemble those saints
whom we love ? shall we remain satisfied with mourning over the sterility of
the present, while we each one of us carry in our hearts a form of sanctity
which would blossom forth at the mere bidding of our will ? ... If, in the
middle ages, a deceased society could only be cured by the immense effusion
of love which was poured upon it especially by St. Francis of Assisi ; if later
on new sufferings called for the healing hands of St. Philip Neri, St. John of
God, and St. Vincent de Paul, how much greater need have we now of charity,
of self-devotion, of patience, to cure the sufferings of the nations ! . . . The
question which divides men in our day is no longer a question of political
forms, it is a social question — that of deciding whether the spirit of egotism or
the spirit of sacrifice is to carry the day ; whether society is to be a huge traffic
for the benefit of the strongest, or the consecration of each for the benefit of
all, and above all for the protection of the weak. There are many who have
already too much, and who wish to possess still more ; there are a greater num-
ber who have not enough, and who want to seize it if it is not given to them.
Between these two classes of men a struggle is imminent, and it threatens to
be terrible — on one side the power of gold, on the other the power of despair.
It is between these two opposing armies that we must precipitate ourselves, if
not to prevent, at least to break, the shock. Our youth and the mediocrity of
our position makes easy this role of raediatorship which our title of Chris-
tians renders obligatory,"

CHAPTER XII.

1838-9.

Towards the close of 1838 Ozanam went up for his de-
gree of Doctor of Letters, His Latin thesis was on the de-
scent of the heroes into hell, a study from the ancient poets.
Dante was the subject of the French one. * The success of
the first was marked, but that of the latter surpassed the high-
est hopes of his most admiring friends. It was more than a
success, it was a revelation. Frenchmen had hitherto known
the great Florentine poet almost exclusively as the singer of
Francesca di Rimini's woes, and of the ghastly tragedy of the
Hunger Tower; they had not discovered that he was a theo-
logian as well as a poet, and that his influence had been as
fertile and enduring on the religious feeling of his country-
men as upon their art. Ozanam had studied the character
and the genius of Dante until he had come to love him with
something of religious enthusiasm. In revealing the unsus-
pected beauties of the pathetic, mysterious figure, he rose to
heights of inspiration which it is seldom given to human elo-
quence to reach, and never except when it is the inspired
messenger of the soul. He evoked the spirit of the dead
poet, and bid the living look upon him. As at the voice of a
magician, the clouds rolled away, and the luminous figure
stood revealed against the background of the thirteenth cen-
tury, crowned with its triple halo of exile, poet, and theolo-
gian. The audience, spellbound with admiration, listened in
breathless silence. M. Cousin, one of the examiners, and a
qualified judge of eloquence, bore it while he could; but at
last, like one beside himself, he cried out, " Ozanam, how is
it possible to be so eloquent ?" Tears flowed on every side
and choked applause, until the orator, himself overcome with

109

1 1 o Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

emotion, descended from that tribune which he had con-
quered as the pedestal of his future glory ; then the entire
hall rose with an irrepressible shout. This thesis, so long and
laboriously prepared, was the kernel of a volume which Oza-
nam published later, under the title of Dante et la P/iilosophie
Catholiqiie an Treizieme Siecle.

The affair of the Chaire de Droit was still undecided, and
continued to drag on in endless preliminaries and negotia-
tions.

His mother's rapidly-declining health increased his anxiety
to obtain the appointment. " I am witnessing the saddest of
all spectacles," he writes to Lallier — " the failing of my poor
mother's strength. In proportion as her sight steadily decays
her moral energy gives way ; her sensibility seems to increase
with our anxieties."

His inability to remove from his mother's mind this poig-
nant anxiety concerning the future of her younger sons, and
surrounding her last days with peace and comfort, was a con-
stant thorn in his heart.

"After all the sacrifices my dear father made for my education," he says,
'• I ought to be able to replace him now, and to be the support of my family ;
1 am, on the contrary, only an additional burden. A lesson in law which I
give every day is the most stable part of my income ; my clients leave me
large leisure. With the exception oftwo cases at the assizes, which made a
good deal of noise and very little money, and two law-suits which I conciliat-
ed, one that I pleaded before the Tribunal of Commerce last week, a memo-
rial which I drew up in a dispute between two tradesmen, a certain number of
consultations gratis, I have had nothing to do for the last five months in this
wortliy profession of the bar, one of those at the end of which a man is surest
of making a fortune provided he does not die of hunger at the beginning ; and
yet —must I confess it ?— these small ite'.Tisof business are still repugnant to
me. 1 cannot get acclimatized in the atmosphere of chicanery ; discussions
that turn solely on pecuniary interests are painful tome. There never was a
case so good but that there are wrongs on both sides ; and let a defence be
ever so legal, one has always some weak point to dissemble. There are habits
of hyperbole and reticence which the most respectable members of the bar
practise, and which one must submit to ; all the figures of rhetoric are reduc-
ed into action before the tribunals which recognize no other language. It is
understood that ycu are to claim two hundred francs damages when you only
want fifty ; that your client is infallibly right in everything he alleges, an<J

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 1 1 1 .

that his adversary is a scoundrel. Venture to express yourself in more rea-
sonable terms, and you are set down as having given in, made concessions,
confessed yourself conquered ; your colleagues reproach you ; your client
cries out that he is betrayed ; and if you happen to meet in society one of
the judges who presided in the case, he accosts you with ' My dear fellow,
you are too timid ! ' "

Ozanam's leisure at the bar left him plenty of time for lite-
rary work, and he employed it in enlarging his thesis on Dante,
which had grown imperceptibly to tlie dimensions of a vol-
ume, and which he finished in the month of May, and sent
on to Paris for pul^lication.

At last the long delays came to an end, and on the 21st of
February, 1839, he announces his official appointment :

"The Municipal Council, by a majority of twenty-eight votes out of thirty-
six, has named me Professor of Commercial Law. This nomination has yet to
be confirmed by the Minister of Public Instruction. I have therefore written to
M. Cousin to say that, while gratefully thanking him for the offer of the
Chair of Philosophy at Orleans, I was moved by a sense of duty to my family
to choose the Chair of Law at Lyons."

M. Cousin, who was well acquainted with Ozanam, judged
rightly that Philosophy was a fitter sphere for him than Law,
and, pending the uhimate decision of the municipality, he had
written to his young friend offering him the Philosophical pro-
fessorship at Orleans. Tlie offer was tempting, and it was
not without a struggle that Ozanam declined it.

" Tell me what you think of my choice,'' he says to Lallier, " and what my
friends in Paris think of it. Here I have been almost blamed for it. Most
people were of opinion that my true interests were on the banks of the Loire.
For myself, I confess that I was attracted by the prospect of an exclusively
intellectual career— an existence w-hich henceforward would have been irrevo-
cably fixed, and consequently peaceful ; the neighborhood of Paris also drew
me ; but, as a set-off against this, there was the total isolation in a strange
town, the necessity of leaving my mother for six months of the year, with the
riskof receiving some day a letter like that of the 1 2th of May, 1837.* . . . There
is some talk of founding a School of Law in these parts ; and if so, the muni-
cipal Professor would stand a fair chance of getting a chair there — that is to
say, an honorable position/iJr life, with the right of enlarging the sphere of his
lectures as much as he liked. If God gives me life and strength, and settles me
by a definite vocation in these quiet functions, I should like to bring my per-

* .-Announcing his father's accident.

112

Life and Works of Fraicric Ozanam.

sonal labors into harmony with my public duties by writing a book on the
Philosophy and the History of Law, treated from the Christian point of view ;
this, it seems to me, would fill up a great void in science."

His nomination to the Municipal Chair was settled finally
in the month of July. M, Cousin writes himself to announce
it:

" My Dear Ozanam : 1 did not write to you so long as 1 had nothing posi-
tive to tell you. Now I come to announce to you that in the council of yester-
day it was settled that you were to be named to the Chair of Commercial
Law.

"I would much rather have seen you in my own regiment, but I don't de-
spair of it yet, and in any case I am satisfied that with me, or without me, you
will always love and serve true philosophy.

" Don't quite forget me, for you are always sure to find in me a friend."

These personal matters did not make him relax his active
interest in the progress of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

"Our little Society," he writes to Lallier, "has become sufficiently impor-
tant to be regarded in the light of a providential fact. See that you are pre-
sent as often as possible at the particular meetings ^call on the presidents from
time to time ; take an interest in the meetings of the board of direction. . . .
I fully approve of your idea of speaking in a forthcoming letter of the exterior
spirit of the Society, the absence of secrecy, and the necessity for remaining in
the background. It would perhaps be well to lay down this principle, that hu-
mility is obligatory for associations quite as much as for individuals, and you
might illustrate it by the example of St. Vincent de Paul, who se%erely repri-
manded a priest of the mission for speaking of the Society as ' our holy society.'
Servi inutiles stitniis is the testimony which those who serve God and their fel-
low-men should bear to themselves. It would then be well to dwell a little on
the nature of humility, and to show how it should exclude- all collective pride,
which disguises itself so often under the name of love of a community, and
those imprudent displays before strangers under pretext of ediiication or pro-
selytism. On the other hand, one might mention that silence is not the inevi-
table form of true humility, but may sometimes be even contrar}' to it, for
people are only silent concerning what they believe to be important, and they
compensate themselves amongst each other for the admiration they cannot
claim from without. Thus, not to sftow ourselves, but to let ourselves be seen,
might be our formula, and it is pretty much the one that we find amidst the
maxims of a great apostle of charity, St. Francis de Sales. We have had
ample opportunity here of practising this doctrine, surrounded as we have
been by two kinds of dangers. On one hand the rivalry of some other pious
confraternities, and on the other the too expansive zeal of certain members
who went about praising our little work ; the exaggeration of the reports
made us appear suspicious inlhe eyes of the former, and ridiculous in those of

Life and ]Vorks of Frederic Ozanam. 113

others. It was prophesied to us that publicity would be our death ; but,
thank God, the prophets of evil have proved false ones. We kept ourselves
lowly ; people pitied us and allowed us to live.

" I will tell you, in a letter addressed to M. Bailly, about another work
which we have undertaken without prejudice to this one, and which it would
be aesirable to see established wherever there is a conference ; that is, the
propagation of Christian instruction amongst the soldiers of the garrisons.
Here we have got up a librarj- and a school for reading, writing, and arithme-
tic for the soldiers, and already the results are consoling."

It was not, however, to be expected that a work of such
growing importance as the Society of St. Vincent de Paul
should attain its maturity without making enemies and en-
countering opposition.

" It is impossible to blind ourselves to the fact," says Ozanam ; " the society
has everywhere met with mistrust. If at Lyons it has escaped the censure of
the ecclesiastical authorities, if even a few venerable priests have encouraged
it, it has never ceased to be the object of vexations on the part of seculars, the
big-wigs of orthodoxy, fathers of the council in dress-coats and strapped pan-
taloons, doctors who lay down the law between the morning's newspaper and
their business accounts ; persons to whom whatever is new is unwelcome, and
by whom everything emanating from Paris is assumed to be wicked, whose
personal opinion on pKjlitics is a thirteenth article of the creed to them, who
appropriate works of charity as their own belongings, and declare modestly,
putting themselves in the place of our Lord, 'Whosoever is not with me is
against me.' You would hardly believe the tricks, the cavilling, the insults,
the meannesses we had to bear from these people, who are all in p>erfectly
good faith. The most estimable have been carried away by the general feel-
ing, and we had a great deal to suffer even from those who love us. But why
should we complain when we have to do with a generation which anathema-
tizes M. Lacordaire, declares M. de Ravignan unintelligible, and the Abbe
Coeur a man to be suspected ? Chaurand and I, as chief founders and promo-
ters of the work, have been continually in the breach, and find it a very weari-
some post ; one's spirit must in-bibe a certain bitterness, charity must more or
less suffer in the con%'ersations that one is forced to have on this subject. On
the other hand, there is a heavj' responsibility attached to our office, humble
as it is, for the faults one commits are doubly serious when they fall back on
the work one is directing. The heads of pious associations ought to be saints,
in order to draw down upon them the blessing of God. I often ask myself
how I dare, I so bad and so weak, remain the representative of so many ex-
cellent young men. This is why I long for the moment when it will be possi-
ble for me to resign the presidentship.

" We are reading at present at our meetings the life of St. Vincent de Paul,
in order better to penetrate ourselve<; with h!=; maxims and traditions. A pa-
tron saint should not be a signboard to a society, like a St. Denis or St.

1 14 Life afui JVorks of Frederic Ozanam.

Nicholas over the door of a tavern. It is a type that we should strive to real-
ize, as he himself realized the Divine type, which is Jesus Christ. It is a life
that we must continue, a heart where we must seek to warm our hearts, an in-
telligence to which we must come for light ; it is a model for us on earth, and
a protector in heaven ; we owe him consequently the twofold homage of imi-
tation and invocation. It is only on this condition of appropriating the
thoughts and virtues of the saint that the Society can escape from the personal
imperfections of its members, and, by rendering itself useful to the Church,
justify its existence."

In drawing up the rules of the confraternity no provision
had been made for prayers and other charitable offices in be-
half of those who might be called away. It was not long,
however, before this oversight, natural enough in the young,
met with a sad and stern rebuke in the death of some of the
youngest of the little brotherhood.

Ozanam was the first to think of repairing the omission,
and suggested that every year, on the first Monday of Lent,
a Requiem Mass should be celebrated for the deceased mem-
bers, all the associates assisting, that by this means they
might still maintain unbroken the bonds of charity which had
united them on earth.

He attached great importance to a correspondence being
regularly kept up between the various conferences, and gently
upbraids Lallier, who was in Paris, for growing remiss in this
respect. These sort of epistles were heard with attention,
and often bore good practical fruits. " You are therefore
earnestly entreated to resume a correspondence which had
about it something of the apostolic times, and which you
have, I suspect, suspended simply because of that too great
modesty against which I wage war so pitilessly." "You
can form no idea," he urges elsewhere, *' of the magic there
is in words that come from a distance. Your letter has re-
vived the ardor of the work among the soldiers, which was
beginning to languish. The links that bind us to the Society
of Paris are like those which united those celebrated twins
whose separation caused their death ; life and blood circulate
interiorly."

He believed much in this power of association for good,

Life and Works of Frederic Ozatiam. "S^

and referred to it continually as the most effectual counter-
poise to tlie fatal strength of union amongst the wicked.

" Alas !" he exclaims, '■ we see the division which exists in society growings
deeper and wider every day. It is not political opinions that divide men ; it
is something less than opinions ; it is their interests that sunder them. Here
is the camp of the rich, there the camp of the poor. One only means of sal-
vation remains to us — that is, that Christians, in the name of love, interpose
between the two camps, passing like beneficent deserters from one to the
other, collecting abundant alms from the rich, and resignation from the poor ;
carrying gifts to the poor, and words of gratitude to the rich ; teaching them
on both sides to look upon each other as brothers ; and communicating mutu-
al charity to all, until this charity, paralyzing and stifling the egotism of both
parties, and every day lessening their antipathies, shall bid the two camps
arise and break down the barriers of prejudice, and cast aside their weaf)ons
of anger, and march forth to meet each other— not to fight, but to mingle to-
gether in one embrace, so that they may henceforth form but one fold under
one pastor : unum ovile, units pastor."

His faith in the power of friendship was indeed as strong
as his personal delight in it was boundless, " Friendships,"
he says, " formed under the auspices of faith, in a double
confraternity of religious discussions and charitable deeds, far
from growing cold by absence, draw closer, and become as
it were more concentrated. They live in memory, and mem-
ory beautifies all things, idealizes all realities, purifies every
image, and retains the pleasant far more vividly than the
painful ones."

CHAPTER XIII.

1839.

The position which Ozanam had waited for so long and
anxiously did not bring him the peace of mind he had ex-
pected. His chief motive in coveting it was the power it
would give him of surrounding his mother's declining years
with greater comforts; and this privilege, now that he had
gained it, seemed likely to be of short duration. Madame
Ozanam's health had reached that point when all that could
be hoped for was that the end, which was swiftly drawing
near, might be peaceful, and free from unendurable suffer-
ing.

As regarded Frederic himself, he had confidently looked
to his nomination as to an event which would set at rest for
ever all doubts as to his vocation, believing that henceforth
he would feel perfectly reassured as to his appointed work.
Here, too, he was deceived, this disappointment being, in-
deed, a natural consequence of the former one. Since his
mother's death was likely to set him free so soon, and to re-
move all necessity for his continuing in a worldly career, had
he done wisely in trammelling himself with fresh responsibili-
ties and ties ? Might he not have thereby set up a barrier be-
tween him and his true vocation — the priesthood ? There
was nothing, except his present duty to his mother, to indi-
cate that he was not called to the sacerdotal life, and there
were many inward voices, attractions, aptitudes, antipathies,
which whispered to him sometimes loudly, sometimes more
faintly, that he was. His ardent desire to serve the cause of
truth, to do something for God and humanity, to lead a life
of self-forgetfulness, labor, and sacrifice, was as strong as ever,
while his repugnance to marriage continued insurmountable.

116

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 117

A letter written to a friend who consulted him on the subject
of his own intended marriage gives a clear idea of what his
views were at this period. He was now six-and-twenty years
of age :

"... I am greatly touched by your confidence. There is no more severe
trial than this uncertainty concerning- a question on which one's whole life de-
pends, and in these circumstances the full and corajilete acceptance of the Di-
vine will must be most meritorious. You are too deeply imbued with this be-
lief for your decision, whatever way it may be, not to turn out for your happi-
ness and your salvation. But I cling to the hope of seeing you preserve your
liberty a little longer ; of seeing you wait a little before contracting new duties
which would enchain you completely and leave you no time for study or for
action. The solitar)- life you are leading just now is no doubt sad and dreary ;
but work can fill it up, and religion can console it. God and science, charity
and study, are not these enough to charm your youth ? And then, if I may
say out all I think, is virginity a virtue fit only for the daughters of Eve ?
Was it not, on the contrary, one of the principal glories of our Redeemer ?
Was not this what He cherished above all in His beloved disciple ? Is it not the
fairest flower that is cultivated in the garden of the Church ? Do you feel no re-
gret in letting it wither before the hour of noon ? Would you not be glad to take
it with you to heaven, were you called away during those perilous years which
precede perfect maturity ? Does not the day after a marriage always bring
you a kind of pang .> Believe me, a man abdicates a great part of his dignity
the day that he chains himself to a woman's arm. Read over St. Paul. Do
not imagine from this that I am an advocate for eternal and universal celi-
bacy. Heaven forbid ! But I should like men to postpone marriage to the
time when it has become necessar}-, and therefore ceases to be fatal ; to the
period when the mind has reached its development, when the will has acquir-
ed all its energ)', and when one is committed by one's work, one's engage-
ments, one's antecedents of any sort, so as no longer to be able to disengage
one's self ; until one has gained some right to the joys of domestic life by
work and solitude; when one has something to offer, and not everything to
receive ; to that period, in a word, when a man is sure of being his own mas-
ter, and free e.xternally.

"You speak of the sweets of family life ; but, my dear friend, is it quite
opportune, this material or sentimental well-being, this twofold egotism ? Is
society so happy, is religion so honored, is our Christian youth so numerous
and so active, are the few who can work for the general good so full of lei-
sure, as that you, to whom God has given such ability, who are surrounded by
acquaintances and encouragements, and who are conscious of an inner voice
calling you to work, should feel justified in withdrawing from the field like a
tired laborer who has borne the heat and burden of the day ? Were you not
in earnest, after all, in what you have said and-done and vsritten, and in what
your friends have repeated and striven for with you ? Do you despair of the
regeneration of the country, and the amendment of ideas ? Or Ls it that you

ii8 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanatn.

clospair of yourself — that is to say, of God, who created, redeemed, and sancti-
fied you ? You say, forsooth, that it is so hard to find out your post here be-
low ! May we not all say the same thing ? And is this a reason for commit-
ting suicide ? and is it not suicide for you, being what you are, to go off to
X. to sow turnips ?

" I entreat you, go and see Montalembert, or rather ask him where he is to
be found. I have reason to think that he could suggest to you many projects
capable of occupying your mind, and diverting you from your present intel-
lectual idleness."

This period, which outwardly seemed one of calm and defi-
nite appointment, was in reality the most agitated of Ozanam's
life. The municipality of Lyons had just created a professor-
ship expressly for him, and he was pursued on all sides by
the most seductive offers. M. Cousin did not disguise his
hope of ultimately luring him into "' his regiment," as he call-
ed the school of philosophy ; the leaders of the Catholic party
were appealing to him for articles in the various periodicals
and newspapers ; M. de Montalembert, who was just then
founding one, writes to him : " I implore of you, give us
a few fragments of your work, a few splinters of the monu-
ment that you are chiselling ; I ask this service as of a friend
and brother-in-arms, on whose sympathy I can count, as you
must always count on mine."

If these encouraging invitations had come a year sooner,
Ozanam would have hailed them with gratitude and delight ;
but with the threat of his mother's death before his eyes, and
his own consequent emancipation from the duties which
bound him to his present career, they were only a source of
pain and perplexity.

He had watched with intense interest the Abbe Lacordaire's
scheme for the reintroduction of the illustrious order of St.
Dominic into France, which was now on the eve of its ac-
complishment. Affection for Lacordaire himself, admiration
for his genius and holiness, and, at the same time, a sort of
personal pride in him as a Cadiolic and a brother-in-arms, all
tended to draw Ozanam's sympathies strongly in the direction
of the order which had once shed such lustre on the Church
of France. No doubt Lacordaire saw this, and it was nat-

Life and Works of Frederic Czanam. 119^

ural that he should endeavor to follow up the advantage.
There is no power so terrible on the battle-field as a virgin
heart; it was this that made trained warriors tremble before
the frail Maid of Orleans, and the poet expressed one of the
deepest truths of Christian life when he sang of King Arthur's
blameless knights, " Their strength was as the strength often,
because their hearts were pure." No one understood this
truth better than Lacordaire, and it is not to be wondered
that he should have been lovingly and longingly bent upon
the conquest of Ozanam's strong, pure heart, and that, when
the grave had closed over his friend, lie should have alluded
to his failure in capturing the prize with a sense of disappoint-
ment, mingled with a tenderly implied though unmerited re-
proach.

" On Thursday, the 7th of March (1839) — feast of St. Thomas Aquii>as — we
leave Paris," he wrote to Ozanam ; " we shall be at Lyons on the 10th, and
on the T2th we embark for Milan. I shall be so delighted to see you and all
our friends, and I expect that you will help us to perform the pilgrimage which
no good Catholic omits at Lyons."

Ozanam prepared a welcome for his illustrious friend by
convoking the various conferences of St. Vincent de Paul to
meet him, and hear once more that eloquent voice which had
so endeared itself to the Catholic youth of France. It was a
solemn and tender meeting. Lacordaire himself was deeply
moved, and his emotion inspired him with one of those sud-
den, soul-stirring bursts of eloquence which a large gathering
of souls seldom failed to call forth from him. He spoke with
great simplicity; he told them the story of his present mission,
the long efforts that had preceded its approaching fulfilment;
he explained, with the familiarity of a brother speaking to
brothers, the aim and object of his work, which had been so
often misunderstood and falsely interpreted; he told them all
abouc St. Dominic and the special apostolate of the Preach-
ing Friars, whose rtde he was going to embrace ; he dwelt
much on the necessity of recalling religious orders to France;
^nd concluded by speaking in terms of the warmest affection

I20 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

of the members of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and
asking them to pray for him and his two companions. These
young men, it was said, had been drawn from the dark haunts
of the Carbonari by Lacordaire's siren voice. Everything
conduced to render the scene impressive: the numerous as-
sembly of young men, whose faith was in enthusiastic sympa-
thy with that of the young priest going fortli from their midst,
sacrificing a career already illuminated with the purest glory,
in order to devote himself to a life of austere labor, of pover-
ty and suffering, voluntarily chosen. It was a spectacle cal-
culated to move, by a sudden and irresistible impulse, the
whole course of a life in those who witnessed it. There were
many present who never afterwards lost the impression of
that hour, and there were few dry eyes in the assembly when
the Abbe Lacordaire and his two fellow-pilgrims passed out
of it.

It will readily be imagined that Ozanam was not one of the
most indifferent amongst the spectators.

Soon after his arrival in Rome, Pere Lacordaire wrote to
him, giving an account of his journey, his arrival at the Domi-
nican convent, the affectionate welcome he and his companions
had met with from their Italian brethren, and his own recep-
tion into the order — a pleasant, friendly letter, full of spon-
taneous information about himself and his happiness in his new
vocation, but not containing an allusion, direct or indirect, to
the possibility of this vocation being shared by his correspon-
dent. If the reticence was calculated with a view to eliciting
responsive confidence, the strategy succeeded perfectly, as
the following extract from Ozanam's reply proves :

" Lyons, August 26, 1839.
"... When your letter from La Quercia came to inform rae of the happy
termination of your pilgrimage, the welcome given you by the family of St.
Dominic, and the souvenir which, in the midst of so many absorbing interests,
you retained of the members of St. Vincent de Paul, I hesitated long between
the desire to express to you my gratitude for this unexpected honor, and my
fear of intruding inopportunely upon the laborious solitude of your novitiate.
But, in a recent journey to Paris, I learned that your friends had not given up

Life and Works of Fredem Otanam. 121

corresponding with you ; and since yoa condescend 10 give me thii title, 1 feel
at liberty to avail myself of its privileges. It is so short a time since you left
the great capital yourself that the impressions of a traveller of yesterday can
be of little interest to you. There is no need to tell you, what you know al-
ready so well, that the movement to which you gave such a powerful impulse
from the pulpit of Notre Dame has not ceased to spread amongst the intelli-
gent classes. I have seen with my own eyes republican Carbonari changed
into humble believers, young artists with fiery passions asking for the rules of
the Confraternity. I recognized the disorganization, the discredit of the ra-
tionalistic school, which has rendered it oowerless, and compelled its two
principal organs, the Revue Fran^aise and the Revue des Deux Mondes to
beg for the collaboration of Catholics, or, as M. de Buloz says, of honnetes
gens. Meantime M. de Montalembert has succeeded in forming, in the Cham-
ber of Peers, a phalanx ready to fight for the good cause ; and M. de Came
affirms that in the Chamber of Deputies fifty votes will soon be forthcoming
in favoi of the religious questions : on the other hand the little Society of St.
Vincent de Paul sees its ranks growing with astonishing rapidity. A new
conference has been formed of students from the Ecole Normale and the Poly-
technique ; fifteen young men, forming about a third of the seminary of the
University, have asked as a favor to spend two hours every Sunday, their only
day of liberty, in working for God and the poor. Next year Paris will count
fourteen conferences, and we shall have a like number in the provinces ; all
this represents a total of more than one thousand Catholics impatient to join
in the intellectual crusade which you will preach. . . .

"Meantime I, the humble witness of those things so full of hope, am now
probably settled for some time to come in a position which I had long desired,
that of Professor of Commercial Law. I am thankful for a post which fixes
me near my mother, now old and infirm, and which does not at the same
time tear me from my taste — unlucky, no doubt, but incurable — for literary
and philosophical work, ... I feel just at present more than ever the need
of a spiritual direction, which would supplement my weakness and deliver me
from my own responsibility. To speak quite op>enly, I have felt more than
once, in presence of the illness of my mother, which is making such fearful
progress, and when the possibility of that awful loss has come upon me, that
there is no reason why I should retain a position which filial duty alone led
me to seek ; and then uncertainty as to my vocation comes back with greater
anxiety than ever. I commend to your charitable prayers this interior trial,
from which I have long suffered ; for, if God deigned to call me to His ser-
vice, there is no army in which I would more gladly serve than that in which
you are enrolled. I should even be glad to know something of its conditions
beforehand, so that, with the help of my confessor, I might come to some de-
termination. The Rule of the Preaching Friars does not figure in our libra-
ry ; can you tell me where it is to be found ? You would thereby add one
more obligation to the many which I already owe you."

P^re Lacordaire did not leave this letter long unanswered.
After touching on the manifestations of a change in publiq

122 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

feeling, which Ozanam alluded to in his opening lines, he
goes on to say :

"... We shall see greater things than these. Do we not already see
Don Carlos driven out of Spain, and the Revolution mistress of the country
until such time as the wind of the Lord shall arise over Spain, as well as
over France .■• The Revolution, as .Mirabeau said will go the round of the
world, but with the Catholic Church behind it. You must know, my dear
friend — for, in truth, I entertain this feeling towards you — you must know
that in a book which was printed at the beginning of the seventeenth century,
if not earlier, and which treats of the life of a certain Madame d'Escobar, it is
said that she had a vision where she beheld, at the same time, England being
converted ivhile Spain was being perverted. It was the same saint who fore-
told that one day the orders of St. Dominic and :^t. Ignatius would be per-
fectly reconciled and united.

" I saw in the Univers, which we take in, that your Dante has been reprint-
ed ; I am glad of it. You must on no account lay aside your pen. Writing
is a hard trade, no doubt, but the press has become too powerful for us to de-
sert our post there. Let us write, not for glory, not for immortality, but for
Jesus Christ. Let us crucify ourselves to our pen. If nobody should read us
in a hundred years hence, what does that signify ? The drop of water that
falls into the sea has gone to swell the flood, and the flood never dies. ' He
who has been of his time^ says Schiller, ' has been of all time.'' ' He has done
his work, he has had his share in the creation of things which are eternal.
How many books there are now forgotten on the shelves of our libraries that
contributed three hundred years ago to bring about the revolution which we
are witnessing ! Our fathers themselves are unknown to us, but we live by
them. Moreover, nothing that you have written should dishearten your pen.
You have a nervous, brilliant style, and solid erudition. I advise you strong-
ly to go on working, and, if I were the director of your conscience.I would lay
it on you as, an obligation.

" The close of your letter, where you tell me of the persevering instincts that
impel you to the service of God, touch me deeply. The hope of seeing you
some day one of ours is dear to me. I don't know where you could find our
rule. A Paris publisher ought to be able to procure it for you. But even
then I doubt whether you would be able to disentangle clearly the mechanism
of our order. I think a few words would explain it to you more satisfactorily.
The end is preaching and the Divine science ; the means are prayer, mortifi-
cation of the senses, and study. The prayer consists in psalmody, or rather
the recital of the Canonical Office, which takes us about two hours and a half
every day. We only sing Compline, except on great feast-days, when we sing
Tierce and Vespers also. The mortification consists in perpetual abstinence,
with fasting every Friday, and from the i^th of September to Easter. But
this mortification being only a means to an end, the Superior can dispense
from it when necessary. So also with the woollen shirt, from which one can
be dispensed in case of its causing serious suffering. We have no extraordi-
nary penance, and no one need practise any, except they feel the want of it,

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 123

and then with the advice of his director. We have eight or nine hours a day
for study, and vvie may be exempted from choir in certain cases, which increas-
es this time. The real novices, that is, those who enter the order from eigh-
teen to twenty, study for ten years, are lodjjed separately, and only enjoy the
liberty of the fathers when they have reached the priesthood, even before they
have completed their studies. We rise at five, and we go to bed between
nine and ten. As to the government, it is elective and admirably free.
Faults aj^ainst the rule involve no sin, unless they be accompanied by contempt
0/ the rule^ or else, what is very rare, there has been a precept in vtrtute obe-
dicnticE. Faults are punished by prostrations on the ground ; formerly, when
they were grave, they were liable to be punished by the discipline on the
naked shoulders in full chapter. The decline of the monastic spirit has al-
most entirely done away with this custom.

" These few words, my dear friend, will tell you as much about our life as
it is possible to know without having practised it. A week passed with us,
when we shall have a novitiate, will put you au courant better than ten
volumes.

"As regards myself, I ara very happy; I have nothing to regret here, ex-
cept the vk-ant of a certain severity,* which is necessary to us Frenchmen.
When we become monks, it is with the intention of being so up to our eyes.
Here all is grave, spiritual, mortified even — useful; but one feels that one is in
a country where calm reigns, at least on the surface."

The event which Ozanam had been dreading for more
than a year came to pass one month after the date of this let-
ter. It was sudden at the last. On Christmas eve he thus
describes the closing scene in a letter to Lallier :

"... Alas ! what havoc this death has made in my mind as well as in my
heart. No, I am wrong ; what so crushed me was the long illness that I be-
held day by day destroying her, and which— shall I say it ? — seemed as if it
were going to dishonor the sacrifice before consuming it, by quenching the
intellectual faculties and blunting the moral feelings. This thought was horri-
ble, and haunted me constantly ; I seemed to see her soul dying with her
body ! Mercifully the trial was shortened ; just at the end the energy of her
soul revived, and Christ, in descending into the heart of His beloved servant,
left there strength for the supreme struggle. She remained for three days
calm, serene, murmuring prayers, or acknowledging our caresses and services
by a few words of ineffable sweetness. At last the fatal night came ; it was I
who was watching. I suggested to my dear mother the acts of faith, hope,
and charity, the same that she had taught me to lisp after her as a little
child. Towards one o'clock new symptoms showed themselves and frightened
me. I called my elder brother, who was resting in the next room. Charles
heard us and got up ; the servants hurried in. We knelt round the bed ;

• Pere Lacordaire subsequently succeeded in establishing the Dominican rule in France in its
primitive severity.

124

Life and Works of Firdctic Oz^viam.

Alphonse said aloud those heartrending prayers, to which we answered with
sobs. All the succors which religion reserves for this solemn hour— absolu-
tion, indulgences— were once more applied. The memory of an immaculate
life, of good works, which, too numerous and too fatiguing, had hastened its
end ; three sons preserved in the faith amidst these stormy times, and united
here now as by a providential coincidence ; added to this the hopes, so near
to us, of a happy immortality— all this contributed to lessen the horror and
lighten the darkness of death. There were no convulsions, no agony, only a
slumber that left her countenance almost smiling, a faint breathing that grew
gradually fainter, until at last it ceased, and we rose up orphans. How shall
1 describe the desolation that broke forth then, and at the same time the in-
expressible, incomprehensible inward peace that we all felt, the sense of a new
blessedness that, in spite of ourselves, filled our hearts to overflowing — not
ours only, but those of all those nearest and dearest to us ? Then the im-
mense concourse at her funeral, the tears of the poor, the prayers offered up
on all sides spontaneously, and without any solicitation of ours, and then all
the kindly sympathy of friends like you, who hastened to condole with us, and
must have been surprised often to find us so tranquil in our great grief.

" Happy the man to whom God gives a holy mother !

" This dear memory will never forsake us. Often in our solitude now, in
the midst of the anguish that weighs down my soul, the remembrance of
that august scene returns to sustain and uplift me. I think of how short life
is, how soon we shall be reunited with those from whom death has parted us,
and then I feel all temptations of self-love, all the unworthy instincts of my
nature, fade away, and my desires are concentrated in the single one of dying
iike my mother.

" Oh ! how I rejoice now that I did not abandon that blessed death-bed
to run after the vague promises of University honors. If at this trifling sac-
rifice I should only have earned the privilege of passing a few more months
near her, of being there on that last night, I am more than paid for it."

Seldom did the virtues of the dead justify more fully the
tender and passionate panegyric in which the first outburst of
sorrow expresses itself. It was no wild rhapsody of grief, but
the result of his life's deepest and most sacred experience, to
which Frederic gave utterance when he said of his mother
that she had been " the living image of the Church, and the
most perfect revelation of Providence to her children." He
continued all his life to invoke her in his necessities, to con-
sult her in moments of doubt and distress, as when she was
on earth, and he believed that her love and wisdom were em-
powered to help him as of yore. Two years after her death
he writes to a friend, who had just lost his mother :

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 125

" Nothing is so appalling as the growing solitude, the void that death creates
around us. I have gone through it all ; but this state did not last long.
There followed quickly another, when I began to feel that I was not alone,
when I was conscious of something infinitely sweet in the depths of my soul.
It was like an assurance that I had not been left alone ; it was a benign,
though invisible, neighborhood ; it was as if a cherished soul, passing
close by, touched me with its wings. And just as formerly I used to
recognize the step, the voice, the breath of my mother, so now when a fresh
breeze revived my strength, when a virtuous thought entered my mind,
when a salutary impulse stirred my will, I could not but think it was still my
mother. After a lapse of two years, when time might have dispelled what
was merely the effect of an overwrought imagination, I still experience the
same thing. There are moments when a sudden thrill passes through me, as
if she were there by my side ; above all, when I most stand" in need of it,
there are hours of maternal and filial intercourse, and then I shed more abun-
dant tears, perhaps, than in the first months of my bereavement, but an inef-
fable peace is mingled with their sadness. When I am good, when I have
done anything for the poor, whom she loved so tenderly, when I am at peace
with God, whom she served so well, I see her smiling on me in the distance.
Sometimes, when I am praying, I fancy I hear her voice praying with me, as
we used to do together at the foot of the crucifix every night. Often, in fact
— this I would not breathe to any one, but I confide it to you — when I have
the happiness of communicating, when our Saviour comes to visit me, it is as
if she followed Him into my wretched heart, cis many a time she followed
Him when He was borne in Viaticum to the dwellings of the poor ; and then
I believe firmly in tlie real presence o/my mot Iter near me."

CHAPTER XIV.

1840-41.

The Cours de Droit, for which Ozanam had so longed for
his mother's sake, was not inaugurated until after her death.
His opening speech made a sensation, and at once attracted
crowds to the lectures. " The crowd was very great," he
says to his cousin Pessonneaux, " and ever since the hall has
been equally well attended. It liolds more than two hundred
and fifty persons. I permitted myself, nevertheless, all sorts
of philosophical and historical digressions ; I did not even
shrink from enunciating severe truths, while at the same time
I seized any available opportunity of raising a smile on the
countenances of my hearers, and so, as De Maistre says, the
needle made the thread pass. The rector is enchanted at
this success, and is vigorously pushing on my nomination in
Quinet's place."

These lectures lasted but one scholastic year. They have
been published by M, Foisset from the notes left by Ozanam.
In an introductory notice, M. Foisset, himself a distinguished
judge and jurist, observes that " those who did not know
Ozanam as a jurist did not know him fully. . . . Law was
for him not merely what makes a good practitioner at the
Courts; it was not the bare application of judicial texts to the
business of daily life. Law was for him, above all, a branch
of philosophy ; it was a portion of history ; it was even one
side of literature. When a municipal chair of law was creat-
ed for him in his native town, he took possession of it, at the
age of six-and-twenty, armed at all points on philosophy as
on history, and on the positive theory of that portion of sci-
ence which he was charged to teach. Deeply penetrated

136

Life and Wot-ks of Frederic Ozanam. 127

with the true mission of the Professor, he did not aim at ac-
cumulating in his lecture subtle judicial problems; he did not
lose himself in endless discussions on contested points. He
preferred teaching principles to doubts, inculcating rules of
law, and clearly demonstrating their wisdom, instead of initiat-
ing his hearers, as he said himself, ' in the twofold scandal of the
obscurity of laws and the contradictoriness of judgments.'" *
These external compensations could not, however, fill up
the blank which death had made in his life. His two broth-
ers were absent, one on the mission, the other finishing
his studies, and Ozanam, on coming home after his day's
work, found no society by the once happy fireside but that of
the devoted old Gui-gui. It was natural enough that doubts
about his vocation, for a moment laid to rest, should now re-
turn stronger and more perplexing than ever. It seemed an
aimless life, with no object but a personal career in view, dis-
coursing a couple of hours a week at his class, poring over
books with no very definite result, and only his labors amongst
the poor to vivify the dry, commonplace routine. He felt all
the old repugnance for the married state, and endeavored to
dissuade his friends from embarking in it when they asked his
opinion. Loneliness and recent sorrow had so detached
him from life, and made him so realize its brevity and vanity,
that he shrank with a kind of horror from the thought of forg-
ing new chains which would bind him to it again. " In
these arduous times," he says, " the ordinary engagements of
marriage and paternity cannot suffice to generous souls, and
outside the domestic sanctuary they continue to seek strength
for the fight through associations of another kind. ... As
for myself, I look on without arriere-pensee, determined as I
am not to occupy myself with the project of a state of life be-
fore the end of the next vacation. I owe at least one year's
mourning to the memory of my poor mother. I shall mean-
time be able to see the Abbe Lacordaire on his return from

• Koisset, Vtedice nun Notes d' nil Coun de Lhoil . CEuvres completes d'Ozanam, vol. viii. p.
32s.

128 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

Rome, and to assure myself w hether Divine Providence may
not be willing to open to me the doors of the order of St. Do-
minic. Between this and then I shall strive to win some lit-
tle claim to fuller lights from above, by acquiring more aus-
tere habits and greater control over my passions, that thus I
may have more certainty of being actuated by the right in-
spiration. I invite all my friends to help me with their pray-
ers in these grave and decisive circumstances."

Yet it seems to us, as we watch the tenderness of his na-
ture unconsciously revealing itself, that a friendly heart, near
enough to his to hear its throbbings, could scarcely fail to re-
cognize certain premonitory symptoms which might fairly be in-
terpreted as signs of the future vocation. There is no ascetic
note in the following joyous sympatliy with the happiness of
a young father :

"... And so we are really to salute you in sober earnest by that title of ' fa-
ther," which we gave you in the old days as a merry nickname ! Has God given
you the unspeakable consolation of seeing your youth come to life again un-
der the features of childhood in the person of your own son ? Kappy the first-
bom of an early marriage ! He will enjoy his parents in their green season ;
he will not see them growing gray until he has reached maturity himself and
the farewell of death will be only the signal of an approaching rendezvous ;
and you, too, will have had time to see your work accomplished. ... If the
responsibilities of paternity alarm you, the hour is yet distant when they will
be difficult, and meanwhile it is not a burden that God has given you, but a
little angel, whose presence will sanctify your hearth, making virtue appear
more lovely, and the path of life brighter. . . .

" We, on our side, are doing our best to keep alive that sacred fire of chari-
ty that you helped us to light. The little fire of St. Vincent de Paul lives and
grows. The extraordinary demands of this winter revived our zeal. We are
making some progress in the art of plundering the rich in behalf of the poor. . . .
But how little all this is, my dear friend, in presence of a population of sixty
thousand workmen, demorahzed by indigence and by the propagation of evil
doctrines ! Freemasonry and socialism trade upon the misery and the angry
passions of these suffering multitudes, and God alone knows what a future is
in store for us if Catholic charity does not interpose in time to arrest the ' ser-
vile war' that is at her gates !

" Unhappily our ranks have more than one vacant place to show. There
have been several departures, and one death. . . , \\Tiile one poor friend was
taking his flight to a better world, another was binding himself to this one by
casting the golden anchor of a rich and happy marriage. You are ""ware, of
course, that I allude to Chaurand. God has rewarded his many vi.tues by

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanatn, 129

granting him all that constitutes happiness here below. These nuptials cele-
brated h)etween two truly Christian families were very touching. There was
none of the noisy merriment of a worldly ///■<?, but a calm happiness that re-
minded one of the marriage- feast of Cana, and recalled the memory of Isaac
and Tobias."

Yet it is certain that, while entering with poetic sympathy
into the pure joys he describes, Frederic's heart continued as
yet free from any conscious desire to share them. He confides
to a friend that he is obHged to be extremely circumspect in
accepting invitations to soirees, as kindly-intentioned persons
are setting matrimonial traps for him on every side, and he is
exceedingly anxious to avoid being caught. Some of these
friends, with a view to facilitating their benevolent designs,
petitioned the Chamber of Commerce to grant the young
Professor an increase of salary, which was very graciously
done. Frederic's first thought on receiving the information
is, " Oh ! why is my mother not here to make me glad of it?"
His worldly prospects were brightening daily, now that he
had become indifferent to them.

In the holidays he made a journey to Paris :

"... The happy advent of the Easter holidays had interrupted my class,
and restored full liberty to my locomotive faculties, when the necessity for
settling some publishing matters, and perhaps, also, a longing to breathe the
intellectual atmosphere of Paris, decided me to start off incog, on a little jour-
ney in that direction. . . . Everything turned out just as I wished, and I had
the satisfaction at the same time of meeting the greater number of my old
friends. I found them all contented and busy ; great activity in the religious
press ; new writers, like Veuillot, carried off from the enemy and recruited to
the good cause ; ever>'where converts of M. le Cure Desgenettes ; * the pul-
pits filled by the Abbe Cceur, M. Bautain, the Pere de Ravignan, and an Abbe
Marcelin, who, if we may judge by his debut, bids fair to compete with all
of them one day.

"Thus the faith remains entire in the midst of the splitting-up of parties
and schools. There were already three different shades of opinion amongst
the Legitimists, more than six distinct categories amongst the Dynasties, and
now the rancorous divisions of the Republican opposition are manifesting
themselves. On the other hand, the days are far off when the Globe rallied
the elite of the young press to rationalism ; when the triumvirate, Cousin,
Guizot, and Villemain, filled a tribune at the Sorbonne no less powerful than

• The i^^rttty old parish priest of N. D. des Victoircs, which, when he was named to it, was
the mostlmpious and wicked parish in I'aris.

130 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

that of the Palais-Bourbon. To-day there is not a single review, not one pub-
lic class bold enough to formulate a doctrine ; there is no stand-point for hete-
rodox literature between sterile criticism and licentious profligacy. In such
a state of things -we should be masters of the field if we had men enough, if
these men were united in distributing their forces, and if they were supported
by sympathy from without. But, if I am not mistaken, this is precisely the
result that is being prepared, and for no very distant period. The humble
efforts of the lowly and obscure will perhaps have had their share in clearing
the way for great men and great doings. It is evident that the movement,
which has been manifesting itself in divers forms, by turns weak and violent,
pusillanimous and rash, philosophical and literary, the movement which pro-
duced the Correspondant, the Revue Europeenne, the Avenir, the Univer-
stte, the Aiinales de Philosophie C/iietienne, the C'tu'vers, the Conferences of
Notre Dame, the Benedictines of Solesme, the Dominicans of the Abbe La-
cordaire, and even to the little Society of St. Vincent de Paul — facts of very
unequal importance assuredly— it is evident, I say, that this movement, modi-
fied and restrained by circumstances, has begun to sway the destinies of the
age. . . . Then, again, the orthodox Propaganda of England and America,
the Catholic resistance in Ireland, Spain, and Germany, are one with us in
their aim, their polemics, their manifestations ; and the most cordial union
on all these points exists between those whose influence is leading events
and directing the general opinion. The CattoUco of Madrid, the Bttblin Re-
view, the yournal of Religions Science of Rome, the Catliolic Miscellany of
Charleston, the Courrier of Franconia, all hold out their hand to us. . . .

" We are entering on a period of which no one can foresee the vicissitudes,
but whose advent it is impossible to deny. It is nevertheless of good omen
that it opens with an act of justice to the past. Filial piety brings luck. In
linking ourselves once more by the old traditional bond to the eternal truths
of Christianity, and to the laborious conquests of human experience, we shall
be enabled to follow with less danger the progressive instinct which should
enrich, and not repudiate, this glorious inheritance. Science will advance at
a swifter pace when it finds the ground of first principles no longer disputed ;
talent will no longer be wasted calling into question, in this nineteenth cen-
tury of ours, problems which Christianity had solved definitively, after they
had vainly exhausted all the forces of human genius during four thousand
years of ig^norance and doubt.

" The Society of St. Vincent de Paul was not one of the least sources of joy
and hope which I met with in my last visit to Paris. 1 saw assembled in the
amphitheatre where it holds its sessions more than six hundred members,
which does not make the total of its body in Paris. The majority was com-
posed of poor students, but set off, as it were, by a few persons of the very
highest social position. I elbowed a Peer of France, a Councillor of State,
several Generals and distinguished writers. I counted twenty-five pupils of
the Ecole Normale (out of seventy-five that it numbers), ten of the Polytech-
nique, one or two of the Ecole d'Etat Major. That morning one hundred
and fifty members had gone up to the altar together. Letters were received
from more than fifteen towns in France where conferences are in full opera-

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanavt. 131

tion ; a similar number have been set on foot this year. We are now nearly
two thousand young men enrolled in this peaceful crusade of charity. . . .
Now, too, that an ever-increasing pauperism stands face to face, in rage and
desperation, with a moneyed aristocracy whose bowels of mercy have grown
hardened, it is well that there should be found mediators who may prevent a
collision of which no man may foretell the horrible, disasters, who will gain a
hearing in both camps, and who will carry words of resignation to one and
counsels of mercy to the other, giving everywhere the password : reconcilia-
tion and love P

It is only at the end of this long letter that he mentions
a matter of serious interest to himself personally. Monsieur
Cousin, who still coveted him for his own department,
received him most affectionately, when Ozanam, as in duty
bound, paid his respects to '• his most honored patron at the
ministry." He invited him to breakfast, and enquired with
friendly interest into his young protegees position and pros-
pects. " He told me of his intention to name me to Quinet's
place next year," says Ozanam, " but he put a price upon
the favor, of which he is naturally the master. He exacts
that I shall come to Paris in the month of September to
comipete for the Agrc'gatioti de litte'rature^ a new institution
whose success he holds to with an author's natural affection.
He has repeated this invitation to me through several
friends, then through the rector, and finally by a formal
letter, so that it is impossible for me to get out of it. And
yet the difficulty of the programme, bristling with the most
knotty Greek texts, almost throws me into despair, and, with
the work that my class gives me, I have the greatest diffi-
culty to make out as much time as is absolutely necessary for
the most superficial preparation."

He continued nevertheless to go on with it, and describes
himself as devouring an enormous quantity of Latin without
prejudice to the Code of Commerce, and being on the point
of losing his head, if God does not come to the rescue. " At
,the same time," he says, "the Propagation of the faith could
not be neglected, and in the July number of the Annates you
will find a long article, detestable in form very often, but
important in substance, which I was obliged to write, in

13s Life arid Works of Frederic Ozanam.

order to give from authentic sources a general statistic of the
missions."

The Agregation in question was a competitive examination
which candidates for professorships in the University were
obhged to undergo in virtue of a recent decree of M. Cousin.
Ozanam, once fairly embarked as a competitor, threw all iiis
energy into the necessary preparation. Now, as on the
occasion of his nomination to the Chair of Law, he resolved
to a.ccept the issue as the final indication of his destiny. If
he succeeded, and if the University were open to him, he
would regard it as a sign that he was to serve truth in that
sphere. He had never wavered in the internal conviction
that whatever real good he was to do for his fellow-men, as a
secular, must be done by teaching, not merely the law, as at
present, but philosophy and history. The only way in which
he could fulfil his vow was by making knowledge, in so far
as he possessed it, instrumental in the manifestation of truth,
and using science as a weapon to serve the cause of Chris-
tianity. He could not disguise from himself that Paris was
the centre where this service could be best performed. At
Lyons young men had neither time nor inclination for at-
tending philosophical lectures ; as soon as they had finished
their college studies and taken their baccalaureat they went
into business. If, therefore, Ozanam succeeded at the ap-
proaching examinations, was it not essential, looking at his
vocation from the point of faithfulness and self-devotion, that
he should go forth from his own people and begin life anew
in Paris? M. Ampere, whose opinion had greater weight
with him perhaps than any other, strongly urged him to
adopt this course. While he was revolving these problems
in his mind a change wms at hand which was to render
their solution still more difficult to him.

The Abb6, now tlie Pere, Lacordaire was still in Rome,
but he had written to Ozanam, giving him a radiant descrip-
tion of his life in the novitiate, where he had been joined by
eight young Frenchmen, all elect souls, one more gifted than

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 133

the other. Ozanam, in spite of his sympathy and admiration
for these higii examples, did not feel any more definite at-
traction to follow them. He saw no hand distinctly beckon-
ing hira on. He would wait and see Pere Lacordaire, and
examine the matter more closely. The Abbe Noirot, who
knew him better than any one, had stood prudently aloof
while the young man was thus groping his way to the light:
but whenever Ozanam opened his heart to him on the sub-
ject, his answer invariably was " Mariez vous, mon cher^
mariez-vous." And the other would shake his head, not ven-
turing to ofifer a flat contradiction to the advice of so wise a
friend, though inwardly resenting it. The Abbe had always
remained unshaken in his opinion that Ozanam had no voca-
tion foj the monastic life, that there was in him a need of
tenderness and sympathy and encouragement, which made it
desirable for him to marry; he had, moreover, settled in his
own mind the wife that would best suit him out of all the
young ladies in Lyons. But the old philosopher was far too
cunning a judge of human nature, and of this particular
specimen of it, to mention this, or even to make any attempt
to bring about a meeting, shrewdly suspecting that the gen-
tleman's perverse indifference and systematic habit of flying
from those decoy birds, whom he classed in a body as " ces
demoiselles," would frustrate the opportunity. Providence,
however, who loves the pure of heart, and takes their destiny
in hand, was gently leading Ozanam blindfold on to his. He
went one day to pay a visit to M. Soulacroix, the rector of
the Academy. In passing through the drawing-room to his
host's study, he stopped to present his respects to Madame
Soulacroix, and, while doing so, noticed seated in the window
a fair young girl, who was too busy attending to an invalid
brother to pay any particular attention to the stranger whom
her mother was speaking to. The stranger passed on, but
while discoursing on philosophy and other lofty matters with
the learned host, his eyes involuntarily wandered through the
open door to the group in the window, where the bright, fair

134 -^l/^ (^"ii Works of Frederic Ozanam.

face was bending over the young brother, caressing and
amusing huB. " How sweet it would be to have a sister hke
that to love one!" sighed Ozanam, as he watched the two;
and, though he did not then suspect it, from that hour he was
a lost man.

At the end of September he went to Paris to pass the most
formidable examination lie had yet encountered. He gives
us the history of the event himself in a letter written three
weeks later :

" I came up in a terrible fright, convinced that my candidature would play
me a sorry trick by causing me to lose whatever little consideration 1 enjoyed
already in the minds of the Professors. When the dreaded day came, we
were, seven of us, shut up under lock and key in a hall of the Sorbonne, with
eight hours before us, for a Latin dissertation ' On the Causes which arrested
the Development of Tragedy among the Romans.' I happened to be up in
the question, but, not being in the habit of composing quickly, I was at bay
when the fatal hour struck, and I was obliged to hand in a rough copy dis-
gracefully drawn up. The same adventure next day with the French disser-
tation 'On the Historical Value of Bossuet's Funeral Orations.' The auspices
were so unfavorable that, if it had not been for the indiscretion of one of the
judges, who hinted to me that my compositions had succeeded, I should have
withdrawn from the competition.

" Then came three separate argumentations on different days, and of three
hours each, on Greek, Latin, and French texts, given twenty-four hours in
advance. In Greek, I had to explain a chorus of Euripides' Helen and a frag-
ment of Halicarnassus' Rhetoric— very little philology-, as you may imagine,
and a vast amount of words, Helen considered as a poetic creation and a re-
ligious myth ; the history of oratorical art in Athens and Rome. Finally, a
fragment of Lucian and a theological chapter of Pliny, discussion on the role
of Caesar and on the revolutions of religious doctrines amongst the Romans.

" In French, La Fontaine's Philemon ei Baucis and Montesquieu's dialogue
of Sylla and Eiicrates ; here came in a few bold conjectures on the causes of
Sylla's abdication, a still more rash comparison between Montesquieu and St.
Thomas Aquinas. This lively outburst of Catholicism, and two or three
others which I indulged in, gave offence neither to the audience nor the jury ;
and a few reminiscences of Roman law, brought in in order to interpret cer-
tain passages which without this would have been difficult of comprehension,
■were equally well received.

"After this ordeal followed the examination in the four foreign literatures.
I went in at once for Dante, where I felt at home ; Spanish, in which I had
taken ten lessons, succeeded wonderfully. I pulled through Shakespeare ; and
as I had the luck to fall on one of the finest and most touching passages of

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 135

Klopstock, the emotion with which I translated it produced the best effect.
There still remained two lectures on different subjects for each candidate, and
designated by lot, one twenty-four hours, the other one hour, beforehand.
The subject of ancient literature for me was ' The Historj' of the Greek and
Latin Scholiasts.' This looked really like a spiteful trick of fate, and it was
so well known that I was not up in this philological specialite that when the
ticket which fell to me was read aloud, a mischievous titter ran through the
pubhc, composed chiefly of University men. I gave myself up for lost, and—
although one of my rivals, M. Egger, with great generosity, passed on- to me
some capital books which he had by him — after a night of watching and a day
of anguish, I was more dead than alive when the moment came for me to
speak. Despair of myself prompted me to make an act of faith in God such
as I never made before ; never either was I so rewarded. In short, your friend
held forth on the scholiasts during seven quarters of an hour with a freedom,
an assurance that astounded himself; he succeeded not alone in interesting
but in moving and captivating both the judges and the audience, and
withdrew with all the honors of war, having brought over the laughers to his
side. "

The last ordeal was comparatively easy, being a literary
criticism on the century of Louis XIV., where Ozanam, to
use his own words, " gave himself his fling." He was terrified
for a moment at his own audacity. " I feared that I had
blown up the ship," he says, " but all was taken in excellent
part." They proceeded to the ballot [scruiin), and his name
came out first. He could hardly credit it. His slowness in
composing, and his great difficulty in improvisation, made
him pronounce the verdict " un mensonge bizarre," seeing
that amongst the competitors were five young professors,
" who to great learning united a ready, brilliant, and graceful
improvisation."

" If all this be not a dream," he adds, " or an impertinent trick of chance,
there is but one way of justifying it. God gave me the grace to bring to the
struggle a faith which, even when it does not seek to manifest itself outwardly,
animates the language, maintains harmony in the intelligence, and imparts
warmth and Ufe to the speech. Thus I may truly say, in /we via, and this
idea, which at first sight seems the result of pride, is precisely what humbles
at the same time that it reas.sures me.

" I am confounded by so wonderfully providential a success. I seem to see
in it what you see — an indication of the designs of God upon me ; a real vo-
cation, what for so many years my prayers have been imploring. My eldest
Vother is of the same opinion ; I shall therefore walk, still in trembling, but

136 Life and WorksojFirdctk Ozatiam.

with a calmer step, in the new career which has been opened to me by this
singular event."

M. Fauriel, Professor at the Sorbonne, immediately offered
Ozanam the position of Assistant Professor in the Chair of
Foreign Literature, which he himself held. The position was
a precarious one, he being liable to lose it in the event of M.
Fauriel's health being sufficiently restored to enable him to
dispense with a siipplcani, as it is termed, and the salary was
not quite a hundred pounds a year. The duties were, how-
ever, such as Ozanam felt especially qualified to fill, and the
offer, coming immediately upon his extraordinary and un-
looked-for success, seemed like a direct invitation from Provi-
dence. The subject which he was to treat in the coming
year was the literature of Germany in the middle ages, begin-
ning with the Nibdungen and the Book of Heroes. His
" literary conscience," as he called it, determined him to
undertake a short tour in Germany, in order to study the
country upon whose literature he was going to lecture.

It was an interesting and critical moment for studying the
religious aspects of that country. The Archbishop of Cologne,
Monseigneur de Droste-Wischering, was in prison owing to
the firmness which he had displayed against the Prussian
Government when it issued a decree ordering the Catholic
clergy to conform to the prescriptions of the Prussian law on
the subject of marriages between Catholics and Protestants.
A few prelates thought fit to yield to the pressure of the State,
and not to exact from the husband and wife the promise that
the children should be brought up Catholics. Monseigneur
tie Droste was the foremost to set the example of uncompro-
mising resistance, conformably to the canonical laws as laid
down by Pius VIII. in a Brief of the 25th of March, 1830.
He was forthwith seized, in the middle of the night, by order
of Frederic William III., King of Prussia, and imprisoned in
the fortress of Minden, from which he was soon after trans-
ferred to that of Colberg in Pomerania. On hearing of this
Pope Gregory XVI. pronounced an allocution in full con-

Life and Winks of Frederic Ozanam. 137

sistory, and therein loudly expressed his admiration of the
captive prelate's courageous conduct, and his sympathy with
his sutferings.

Ozanam made but a short stay at Aix-Ja-Chapelle, where
he visited the tomb of Charlemagne, " the great black stone,
with its two words of sublime simplicity — Carlo magiior He
hurried on to Cologne, the classic soil of German Catholicism,
where the air is filled with marvellous legends, in which faith
and superstition are so fascinatingly interwoven that the peo-
ple cease to distinguish between the contending claims, and
accept them all in childish and exuberant credulity. He
visited the glorious cathedral, unfinished after its centuries of
existence, and laments over its desolate Condition as of one
" who has passed the age of hope and has not even the con-
solations of memory."

". . . I saw the archiepiscopal throne empty," he writes, "but the
church was full to overflowing. The crowd was packed so close that in some
places it was impossible to kneel down. Picture to yourself the great audience
of Notre Dame, but fancy it believing and praying. I must admit, neverthe-
less, that this German piety would astonish us a little by the imperturbable
calm of its attitudes — always standing up, with big blue eyes lifted to the
roof or wandering over the stained-glass windows, its ear evidently turned in
the direction of the organ, its hands hanging, or fingering a book whose
leaves don't turn over ; from time to time a long, methodical sign of the
cross, then the final genuflexion, and the Ite viissa est taken literally. Worse
than this, the shops are almost universally open on Sunday, and the crowds
that pour straight out from Benediction to the fetes of the Casinos testify to
an inconsistency ot character, or a want of proper instruction, which leads
one to deplore still more deeply the absence of the pastor."

He revels for one day amidst the bewildering beauty of the
churches of Cologne, once " the Rome of the Rhine."

" My souvenirs of Italy are still fresh," he says ; " nevertheless, I must con-
fess that nowhere, except in Rome, did I meet with anything to be compared
to the variety, multiplicity, and antiquity of the sacred edifices through which
1 wandered with delight the whole day, . . . crj'ing out with David, only
in a less perfect sense, ' Quam dilecta tabernacula tua, Domine virtutum I '
No, it was not without reason that our fathers would have it so. The house
of God ought to be loved by men, and the place that was to be holy should
also be beautiful. Admiration is eminently a moral sentiment ; it elevates,
purifies, and prepares. Vandalism and Jansenism gave us a naked, im-

138 Life and IVorks 0/ Frederic Ozanam.

poverished worship, a sombre piety. They effaced, as scandals, the pictures
which attracted the gaze of childhood ; they silenced the music, whose power
lifted up the hearts of the young men ; they destroyed the dim twilight that
fell softly on the old man's eyelids ; they suppressed those popular solemni-
ties, those pious representations, those triumphal processions, to which the
people flocked so joyously. Under pretence of driving out the venders from
the temple, they have driven away the little ones who cried Hosanna ! And
in the midst of those walls, whitewashed and despoiled, they have placed a
new divinity, powerful in evoking silence and void around her. She is called
Ennui. "

These reflections suggest to him the necessity of seconding
all efforts tending to the restoration of Christian art. His
artistic sense is shocked at every step to see these magnificent
architectural che/s-d'auvre disfigured and mutilated by "unen-
lightened repairs and offensive decorations, daubing and ig-
noble coloring thrown for the past five-and-tvventy years over
these beautiful edifices by the ofticial trowel of the engineers."
And yet the architects of these lovely wonders were Germans
of from the eighth to the eleventh century, " great-grandsons
of the Franks of Clovis, whom two hundred and fifty years
of Christianity had sufficed to initiate into the most sublime
and delicate mysteries of true beauty ! "

Ozanam took ample notes of all these things as he passed
rapidly along the Rhine, and observes with satisfaction that
he is gleaning much that will be useful to him in his future
studies.

" \^^len I shall have seen Mayence, where I arrive this evening," he says,
" Frankfort, and Worms, the Germany of the Middle Ages will have passed
before my eyes. It was there, it was at Cologne and Aix-la-Chapelle, that
the emperors were crowned and deposed, that the diets were held, that the
crusades organized. The names of Charlemagne, of the Othos, the Henries,
and the Frederics, reappear wherever there is an historical stone ; and there is
not a stone, not a rock, but has its history, its tradition, or its fable."

The weird, grandiose, and poetic landscape of the Rhine-
country surprises and enchants him. It is unlike anything he
has seen elsewhere, in France, in Italy, or Switzerland. The
fantastic lines of the mountains as they rise and fall and sally
in and out by the banks of the broad, deep, limpid stream,
whose waters do not strike him as " blue," but as a " beautiful

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 139

sea-green," fill Ozanam with enthusiasm. He is quite pre-
pared to accept the marvellous legends that echo through
those solemn and airy hills.

" Here is the rock of the dragon, where a German maiden, the Christian
Andromeda, crucifix in hand, confounded the infernal serpent to which lier
Idolatrous countrymen had exposed her ; opposite rises the great stone of Ro-
land ; the hero came hither to mourn for his fiancee and die. . . . The
Nibelungen, the Carlovingian epic, and the cycle of the Holy Grail are there
face to face. Myths still more ancient peopled the hill of Lurley and the
caves of Kedrich with elfs and dwarfs. But, above myths and popular tradi-
tion, arise the gravS realities of history-.'"

He touches with a light and accurate finger the prominent
events that pass before his historical eye — the Konigs-Stuhl,
where the electors of the empire held council in days of trou-
ble and alarm ; the Castle of Rheinstein, where the freeboot-
ing barons, who made the terror of the Rhine and sat as
portraits for so many of its gigantic myths, used to assemble
to divide their plunder, and cut each other's throats when they
could not agree about their respective share in it ; the ruins
of the monastery where St. Hildegard wrote her visions, the
chapels founded by St. Helen, the bridge of Drusus, " the
soil where, for the first time, the Roman eagle was planted,
and where, for fifteen years, ours too reigned ; the battle-field
of our exploits of yesterday, and — who knows ? — perhaps of
to-morrow."

While Ozanam is tracking these footprints of the past, and
indulging in the meditations which they naturally suggested to
so reflective a mind, a certain sadness steals over him at the
thought that these bright and beautiful scenes, which have
flitted before him like a vision, are now about to vanish and
rejoin others once equally enjoyed, but now mere memories
that grow paler and dimmer as the days go by. '• I wish,"
he says, " that I could at least carry away in my mind all that
my eyes are forsaking; but my memory does not retain the
look of places. The shadow they leave behind fluctuates
there for a while, and too often ends by vanishing altogether."
He begins to fear, moreover, that his excursion has been a

140 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

foolish escapade, that he has been hke those scribblers of
feuilletons who fly off " to discover " a country, or, at best,
that it has been but a flimsy satisfaction granted to his scru-
ples, " a shuffling pretence,'' as he says, " to enable me to say
to ray audience this winter: Gentlemen, I have seen! Just
as, when I was a little boy, I used to dip the tips of my lin-
gers into the water, in order to be able t(. say to my mother
without telling a lie, ' I have washed myself.' Or, to fall
back on grander comparisons, I am something like Caligula,
who went as far as the Rliine, picked up pebbles, and came
back to Rome to receive the honors of a triumph, with the
surname of Gennaiiicus .' "

On his return from this flying expedition, Ozanam was
called upon to prove himself by one of those elections which
are seldom forced upon ordinary destinies ; one of those deci-
sions that place a man face to face with conscience and prin-
ciple, leaving him no alternative but to renounce his ideal, or
cleave to it with a fidelity little short of heroic.

That passing interview which had moved his gentle envy
of the brother who had " such a sweet sister to love him,"
had been followed up by others, and soon there was kindled
in Frederic's heart as pure a flame as ever earthly love lighted
in a manly breast. He offered himself to M. Soulacroix as a
candidate for his daughter's hand, and was accepted. M.
Soulacroix had long admired Ozanam, and watched his career
with interest, augurmg great things for him in the future.
He was not a rich man himself, and he was not ambitious
that his child should marry one ; at the same time he had
that far-sighted parental prudence which makes a French
father consider it little short of criminal to give his daughter
to a man who cannot show a reasonable guarantee for her
future.

Ozanam's pecuniary position was fair enough, seeing that
he was not yet seven-and-twenty, and that his talent was
steadily raising him to fame. But all this was compromised
now, The recent triumph in Paris, by inviting him to the

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 141

Sorbonne, left him no choice, if he accepted, but to throw up
his position at Lyons, and embark on his new honors with a
precarious salary of ^100 a year, and the possibiUty of losing
this any day by the death of M. Fauriel. When he came to
consider the matter by the prosaic light of pecuniary considera-
tions, it was not satisfactory to a man about to take charge
of a wife. What would the wife herself say to it ? Above
all, what would her father say ? Before he had summed up
courage to lay the case before M. Soulacroix, an incident
occurred which still further complicated things. M. Ville-
main, who had succeeded M. Cousin as Minister of Public
Instruction, heard of Ozanam's engagement to the daughter
of his friend the rector of the Academy, and wrote to offer
him the Chair of Foreign Literature in the University of
Lyons, recently vacant through the promotion of M. Quinet
to the College de France. This, with the Chair of Law,
which he would continue to fill, and other lectures that he
gave at Lyons, brought his income up to close on ^600 a
year. The position, moreover, in both cases, was for life.
Here, indeed, was an opportunity of proving the sincerity of
his ideal vocation. Should he renounce this substantial cer-
tainty, and go to Paris on a precarious hundred a year, sim-
ply because, as he believed, he could serve the cause of
Christian philosophy more efficaciously there than in his
native city? After asking for light that he might see God's
will, and then at any and every sacrifice accomplish it, he
went to consult M. Soulacroix. The rector's first movement
was, naturally enough, one of emphatic disapproval. It
seemed a mad imprudence on Ozanam's part, and it certainly
would be on his if he encouraged it, or sanctioned his daugh-
ter's marriage under the circumstances. Ozanam, however,
pleaded his cause so eloquently that the wise elderly man
had to admit there was something to be said on the side of
the heroics. He had, moreover, almost unlimited confidence
in the young man's energy and talent, and knew that he
would avail himself to the full of the magnificent opportunity

142 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

which the Sorbonne opened to him, and that he was hkely,
moreover, to reach eminence much sooner by being brought
into personal contact, as he would be in Paris, with the influ-
ential men who could serve him. But it was one thing to
admit all this in the abstract, and another to counsel his son-
in-law to act upon it. Ozanam, with a stroke of policy
worthy of Talleyrand, determined to appeal to his fiancee,
shrewdly suspeciing that if he won her consent the day was
gained. He laid the case frankly before her. If. they
remained at Lyons, he could offer her comfort, security for
the future, and the happiness, which both of them valued, of
remaining amongst their own people; but by doing this he
would forfeit what he believed to be the noblest part of his
service, that which involved sacrifice and self-renunciation.
In going to Paris they would have to face poverty; but he
would have a wide field for usefulness, and all the conditions
of a noble mission. Had she sufficient trust in herself and in
him to choose the higher and harder part ? Amelie placed
her hand in his, and said, " I will trust you."

And so they went forth together, rich in mutual confidence,
in love and faith, though poor enough in the goods of this
world.

The moment this choice was approved and his marriage
decided, the most profound peace succeeded to the anxiety
and agitation to which Ozanam had been a prey during the
interval of uncertainty.

"Oh ! how much I liave to say to you," he writes to Lallier, "and how
suddenly this grave question of vocation, so lonfi; doubtful, has been solved !
Just as Divine Pro\-idence calls me back to the perilous sojourn of the capital,
He sends me an angel to guard and console my solitude 1 1 now go, leaving
behind me an engagement which is to be concluded on my return. I should
have had recourse to your good advice if events had not precipitated them-
selves with such unforeseen rapidity. I have now recourse to your prayers.
May God preserve, during these six months, her whom He seems to have
chosen for me, and whose smile is the first sunbeam of happiness that has
brightened my life since my poor father's death .

"You will find me ver)' tenderly smitten. I don't attempt to disguise it,
although sometimes I cannot help laughing at myself ! I thought my heart
was more invulnerable. . . .

Life ajid Works of Frederic Ozatiam. 143

" You will find me very happy. It will be a compensation for all the times
that you shared my sorrows."

His marriage took place on the 23d of June, in the sunny
month of the roses.

"Last Wednesday," he informs Lallier a week after the event, "at ten
o'clock in the morning, in the church of St. Nizier, your friend was on his
knees ; at the altar his eldest brother lifted up his sacerdotal hands, while the
younger one made the liturgical responses. At his side you would have seen
a young girl dressed in white, and veiled, pious as an angel, and already — she
gives me leave to sS.y it — tender and affectionate as a friend. Happier than
I, she was surrounded by her parents ; all that Heaven has left me of a family
here below was there ; and my old comrades, ray friends of St. Vincent de
Paul, with numerous acquaintances, filled the choir and p)eopled the nave.
It was beautiful. The strangers who had strayed in by chance were deeply
moved. As to me, I did not know where I was. I could scarcely restrain my
tears, big, delicious tears, as I felt the Divine blessing descending on us with
the consecrated words.

" O my dear Lallier I /ou, the companion of my toils and weariness,
you, the consoler of my evil days, why were you not there ? I would have
feked you to place your signature to the commemorative deed of this great
/ete. I would have presented you to the charming bride who has been given
to me, and she would have greeted you with that smile of hers that enchants
every one ; and since then, during those few days that we have been together,
what calm, what serenity reigns in that soul that you have known so unquiet,
so ingenious in self-torture ! I let myself be happy. I take no count of hours
or moments. The lapse of time is nothing to me. VVTiat do I care about the
future ? Happiness is in the present — it is eternity. ... I understand
heaven now.
." Help Rie to be good and grateful. Each day, in revealing to me new
perfections in her whom I possess, increases my debt towards Providence.
. . . What a difference from those days in Paris when you saw me so sad !

" I am almost forgiven for ha\'ing shown you a certain letter then ; I shall
be forgiven entirely when you are known to the offended person. You are
invited to the house-warming in the month of November."

" My happiness is great," he writes a few days later to the son of his kind
protector, ^L Ampere; " it surpasses all my hopes and dreams. Since the
day that the benediction of God descended on me, I am dwelling in a sort of
enchanted calm, so serene, so sweet that nothing can give an idea of it. The
angel who is come to me clothed in every grace and virtue is like a new reve-
lation of Providence in my obscure and laborious destiny ; I am illuminated
with interior joy. But this light, which fills my soul, casts no shadows over
the memories of the past, and above all on those where gratitude plays a part.
The thought of you was present to me amidst those friends who crowded
round me at the foot of the altar. And afterwards, in those delitrhtful cos-
versations with my new family, who like to hear me talk over bygone yea^-s.

144 Life a) id Works of Ficddiic Ozxiiam.

your name, like that of your venerated father, comes up at every instant, and
is always greeted by the most sincere expressions of gratitude. I could never
express mine as I w^ished, and yet — I know you will forgive me for saying it —
I feel almost as if I were quits with you when I hear you praised by those lips
whose every word thrills through me."

No wonder he was happy, entering as he did on the mar-
ried hfe with such pure aspirations, such a lofty idea of its
duties and privileges. Here is his description of what a
Christian marriage should be :

" In marriage there is not only a contract, there is, above all, a sacrifice, a
twofold sacrifice. The woman sacrifices that which God has given her, and
which is irreparable, that which was the object of her mother's anxious care —
her fresh, young beauty, often her health, and that faculty of loving which
women have but once. The man, in his turn, sacrifices the liberty of his
youth, those incomparable years which never return, that power of devoting
himself to her he loves, which is only to be found at the outset of his life, and
that effort of a first love to secure to her a proud and happy lot. This is what
a man can do but once, between the age of twenty and thirty — a little sooner,
a little later, perhaps never. This is why I say that Christian marriage is
a double sacrifice. It is two cups : one filled with virtue, purity, innocence ;
the other with an untainted love, self-devotion, the immortal consecration of
the man to her who is weaker than himself, who was unknown to him yester-
day, and with whom to-day he is content to sp)end the remainder of his life ;
and these two cups must both be full to the brim, in order that the union may
be holy, and that Heaven may bless it."*

After spending a month in the Dauphine, the young
married couple set out on a tour through Italy. The sacrifice
of a portion of the sum set aside to furnish their house de-
frayed the expenses of the journey. It was a little rash, per-
haps, but they were both young and overflowing with trust in
the future and in one another.

" Only have confidence in me," said the young husband, when they settled
to part with the money that would have adorned their little home, "and I
will, please God, before long give you the prettiest furniture that is to
be had."

They travelled, of course, with the utmost simplicity, but
from first to last '• the journey was like an enchanted dream."
They loitered longer than they should have done in Sicily,

• l.es Femmes Chreticnnes. V!de Ciri'isxii^'-:'. a.u jvic si-clf. vol. ii. p. 07-

Life and Works of Frederic Ozjnam. 145

fascinated by " the rich African nature," so different from
anything they had seen elsewhere.

" A real tropical vegetation ; the fig-trees of Barbary and its gigantic aloes
enclosing, like an impenetrable wall, gardens where the cotton-tree, the papy-
rus and the sugar-cane grow ; terrestrial paradises, where every variety of
the cedrate, the citron, and the orange clustered luxuriantly with their golden
fruit ; the seashore covered with little palm- trees ; the myrtle and oleander
flowering by the roadside ; while here and there the tall palm rose high into
the air with its crown of broad leaves, and bunches of dates suspended from
them. All this hemmed in in the Strait of Messina, at the foot of Etna, with
its brow of snow, in that gulf of Palermo whose wild beauty surpasses, to my
idea, all the boasted beauties of Naples."

But what interests liim most are the traces of Greek and
Roman antiquity that he finds scattered throughout Sicily :
the empty tombs, the ruined temples, the fragments of marble
gods, pillars, theatres, baths — all the rich and varied vestiges
of a classical past. He takes volumes of notes as he wan-
ders through the silent, solemn ruins, seeing everywhere " the
grand inspirations of genius and all its follies ; the progress
of art, from the austere nakedness of its first monuments to
the somewhat over-exuberant decoration of its latest." He is
charmed to find the people cherishing, with a kind of filial
worship, this precious inheritance of the past ; to find also
that they retain the old faith in its fervor, and the primitive
manners of their fathers.

"One evening," he says, in a letter to his father-in-law, "in a pretty ham-
let by the seashore, when the Angelus had rung for the churches to be closed,
we saw the inhabitants shut their doors behind them and go off in procession
to salute the Blessed Sacrament with a last homage. Again and again we
have met with the most patriarchal hospitality from a venerable peasant host
in passing through a village or descending from our litter. We have been sur-
rounded and compelled to enter some humble dwelling, where they would
place the little children on our knees to get a kind word or a caress. In the
monasteries we have come in contact with eminent and excellent men, some-
times with an amount of learning that confounded me, and always with a de-
gree of politeness that enchanted Amelie. She will always remember the
Capuchins of Syracuse and the Benedictines of Catania. But it would seem
that she possesses, above all, the g^ft of charming the good religious of St.
Francis, for in our journey from Naples to Rome she was the object of the
kindest attentions of the old Procureur-General of the Observ-antines, who
ever since accosts us with the blandest smile in his long white beard. Vaster-

146 Life and ]Vorks of Fredetic Ozanam

day, again, at San Pietro, in Montorio, a Capuchin of whom we enquired the
way offered her a bouquet of roses. In fact, it would be enough to make one
tremble, if in this country virtue was not equal to courtesy."

But the ten days which the travellers passed in Rome were
the crowning joy of their expedition. What they achieved in
the way of sight-seeing and visits, besides taking notes for
future use, is absolutely incredible. Everything was as fresh
a wonder to Ozanam as if it had been his, as well as his
young bride's, first glimpse of the Eternal City. He is filled
with pious exultation when the colossal vision of St. Peter's
bursts upon them as tliey approach the city by sea, and they
behold the dome, the vast and wondrous dome, " like the
diadem of the Papacy suspended between heaven and earth."
They go up to the neighboring hills to watch the sun setting
behind the neighboring basilica, and it appears to Ozanam as
" the emblem of that institution which we behold ever erect
and immovable while we are passing on the waves of time,
and on which the last suu of humanity will set."

CHAPTER XV.

1842.

The chair to which Ozanam was named was one which
his mental and moral endowments fitted him admirably to
fill. It was the realization, moreover, of those ambitions
which he had cherished, like the presentiment of a mission,
and for whose fulfilment he had b«en preparing himself from
his early boyhood.

But the Professor's fitness for his post did not obviate the
fact that it was one of peril, beset with dangers and difficul-
ties.

MM. Guizot, Villemain, and Cousin had for some years
past formed a triumvirate of genius which had raised the
standard of professorships at the Sorbonne to the highest
point of critical severity ; it was therefore a tremendous
ordeal for the inexperienced young provincial doctor of law to
be brought into competition with such rivals. This rivalry
was none the less formidable from the fact that the three
celebrated masters owed no small portion of their popularity
and oratorical success to their being the champions of a
strong political opposition, and to the fact that with them the
Professor's chair was frequently transformed into a political
tribune, where science and literature disappeared to make
way for theoretical disquisitions that tickled agreeably the
ears of a socialist, and even revolutionary, audience. But
Ozanam, even if he had not been too humble to court popu-
larity for its own sake, was far too scrupulous to have conde-
scended to any foils or arts for the purpose. He was bent
solely on the accomplishment of his mission as a teacher of
youth. But here, at least, the example of his illustrious col-
leagues afiforded a valuable precedent ; it justified hira in

148 Life and Works of Frederic Oznnam.

using his rostrum in the University as a pulpit for the propa-
gation of truth through the medium of science, poetry, and
history. It might have been more prudent in his own inter-
est if he had confined himself to lecturing on these subjects in
themselves, instead of making them the vehicle of Christian
philosophy ; but personal considerations weighed lightly with
Ozanam against the dictates of duty. He remembered his
vow, and he kept to it as the stars keep to their course. He
knew perfectly that in adopting this conduct he was com-
mitting himself to a manifestation of faith which would in all
probability cost him dear.

The times were excited ; the public mind was envenomed
against religion, or liable to become so at the slightest touch ;
reprisals were violent and prompt. The grand question of
freedom of education {la liberty d'enseignemetit) was being
hotly contested in the Press and the Tribune. M. de Monta-
lembert, the chivalrous captain of the Catholics, was breaking
lances with all comers in the cause of liberty, charming the
chilly souls of his antique brother peers by the spell of his
eloquence, and firing them with a passing thrill of his youth-
ful enthusiasm. All who would fight stood armed at his call,
ready to follow- him on to any encounter. There were divisions
in the camp — as when have there not been ? — but there was
not a single traitor. Ozanam, from his pecuHar position, was
marked out to a post in the advance-guard. Montalembert
had called him a brother-in-arms, and the time had come for
him to vindicate a title which he was proud to bear.

It was nearly half a century since the voice of a Christian
teacher, a teacher identified with the Christian faith, had been
heard in the Sorbonne, while, on the other hand, its walls had
echoed unceasingly to every false and fantastic doctrine of the
Voltairian and Rationalistic schools ; and this absence of
talent, or at least this silence among the Catholic men in the
great seat of learning, went far to sanction the popular idea
that talent, not to say genius, had utterly disappeared from
the Catholic ranks. But now a new era had besjun. At the

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 149

age of seven-and-twenty Ozanam took his seat amongst the
veterans of the proud old University, and electrified yoimg
and old by the splendor of his gifts and the burning ardor of
his faith. It was a strange coincidence that the same
audience which so lately had listened with deiig'nt while
Villemain and Cousin exposed their favorite theses should
now hear, with no less favor, those same theses energetically
denounced from the same rostrum by the daring new-comer.

It was a rash experiment on his part. The State as yet
held the monopoly of the University, and looked with an
evil eye on the men who were leading the war against it
in behalf of the rights of the Church. It was natural
enough, too, that an assembly of young men, all enlisted in
warm partisanship on one side or the other, but amongst
whom the opponents of the Church largely predominated,
should form a dangerous audience for a Professor of
Ozanam 's ardent religious convictions. But he did not
stop to calculate risks ; and Fortune, who sides mostly with
the brave, stood by the young champion of the Gospel,
Here was no sophist, no subtile philosopher striving to
paUiate hard sayings, or smooth down unpalatable propo-
sitions, but a dauntless knight, who rode into the lists with his
drawn sword flashing in the sunlight, and, flinging down his
gauntlet, dared all comers to pick it up. He dealt in no
compromise, he make no concessions to the hostile suscepti-
bilities of his hearers. The sceptics heard him in astonished
admiration, the Catholics applauded with a sense of victory.
" Athens listened," says the Pere Lacordaire, " as she would
have listened to Gregory or Basil, if, instead of returning to
the solitudes of their native land, they had poured out at the
foot of the Areopagus, where St. Paul was preaching, those
treasures of science and taste which were to illustrate their
names. "

The field of Ozanam's new labors embraced an almost
boundless horizon, for it was not a question of initiating his
hearers into the familiar beauties of Greek and Roman

150 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

classics, but of introtUicing tliein to the unknown and endless
storehouses of foreign literature — the poets, philosophers,
historians, writers of every nation who have enriched their
native tongues with a legacy of genius. He had qualified
himself for the task by a thorough knowledge of modern lan-
guages and literatures, and he held from nature that gift which
is the crown and compendium of so many others — eloquence.
Like many gifts of the highest order, it was purchased at a
price. To the end of his life a dclmt was always a painful
ordeal to Ozanam, It did not matter where it was, in the
solemn precincts of the Sorbonne, in a quiet schoolroom, in a
tete-a-iite with a student, or in a drawing-room circle, so long
as he had not spoken he shrank from speaking. He would
remain an entire evening listening to the conversation going
on around him without ever volunteering a remark unless it
was directly elicited ; but if any one appealed to him he an-
swered willingly, at first with a certain hesitation, as if he were
looking for his words, but after a few sentences the dumb de-
mon was exorcised, and his conversation flowed on in a clear
and brilliant stream. Nor did the silence, which he was sure
to command the moment he began to talk, intimidate, but
the contrary : it stimulated and encouraged him.

The same effect was visible, only in a much more striking
degree, in his public speaking. Those who attended his lec-
tures at the Sorbonne continued year after year to note with
wonder the distress that invariably accompanied the opening
sentences. His appearance, as he ascended the rostrum, be-
trayed a high degree of nervous agitation. He was pale al-
most to ghastliness ; his dark eye wandered over the heads
of his audience, as if dreading to encounter a direct glance;
his utterance was labored, his whole manner constrained.
You were unconsciously reminded of a musician trying to
master an indocile instrument whose notes refuse their office
to his beseeching fingers, and only send forth broken and inar-
ticulate sounds. This interval never failed, but it was of short
duration; after a few minutes it passed away swiftly and im-

Life and Works of Fredt tic Ozanam. 151

perceptibly ; the speaker resumed his self-command, emotion
overcame diffidence and burst the bonds of the tongue-tied
spirit; his eye kindled, and met responsive glances boldly;
his action, always simple, grew animated and expressive; his
voice rang out in full and thrilling tones, until the audience,
wrought to sympathy with the rising flame, caught tire at it
and broke out into short but irrepressible bursts of applause.
The victory once gained, the orator held it to the end, rising
to loftier flights as he proceeded, and keeping his hearers cap-
tive to the close.

If we except this passing impediment, resulting in a great
measure, no doubt, from a weak and highly nervous physical
temperament, Ozanam possessed all the elements of the purest
eloquence — a ready and retentive memory, a clear conception, a
facility for rigidly sketching tlie outline of his subject, and fill-
ing it up in strong, brilliant, and delicate colors. Many would
have been dazzled by the inheritance, or would at least have
remained satisfied with so ample a birthright, and spared
themselves the toil of laborious cultivation; but Ozanam
worked as if nature had denied him everything but the facul-
ty of working. The gifts he held from the gratuitous bounty
of God were but so many incentives to the acquirement of
richer and greater things by patient and persevering labor.
Nothing better illustrates this than his manner of preparing
his lectures. Most men, feeling themselves thoroughly mas-
ter of their subject from long previous study, would have
been satisfied with rapidly reviewing it, and jotting down a
few notes on the leading points to be treated. But Ozanam
proceeded diff'erently. On the evening before his cours he
retired early to his study, and selecting from his accumulat-
ed materials the notes and texts he wanted, he proceeded to
classify them in orderly sequence. This done, he placed his
subject before him and meditated on it until the central idea
clearly disengaged itself, and the moral truth that it embod-
ied stood out in distinct relief He would pass long hours in
this solitary and direct contemplation of the beautiful and the

1^2 Lije and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

true, and the night was often far gone when an anxious voice
broke in upon his musings. Early next morning he would
resume the interrupted chain of thought, and then, when the
time came, after invoking on his knees the light and aid of
the Holy Spirit, he went forth to deliver his message.

As he hurried on his way through the gardens of the Lux-
embourg, his head bent, his brow still contracted in deep
thought, you might have taken him for a man in a dream.
Thus it was that the iaz'a/// presented himself at the Sorbonne,
and ascended his chair to encounter that terrible moment of
angoisse which we have described.

His manner of lecturing was full of charm ; he dispensed
his vast erudition with the simplicity of a boy, and with a
prodigality that belongs only to inexhaustible abundance.
Every one of his lectures was a book condensed into a chap-
ter, and he frequently compressed into a sentence an amount
of thought and information which a mind less magnificently
replenished would have diluted into a chapter, telling away
in an hour, like the intellectual spendthrift that he was, the
treasure it had taken years to accumulate. He stripped
knowledge of half its difficulties by his way of imparting it.
Knowledge with him was not so much an intellectual system
as a mental habit, which had become a part of his being; he
did not divest himself of it, as some men do, taking it up and
paying it down at stated times ; when the signal came for him
to impart it officially, he did not seem to stand up and per-
form the functions of a Professor so much as to avail himself
of an opportunity for revealing the rich deposit of thought,
scientific analysis, and observation which life-long study had
left in his mind ; he gave it out naturally, spontaneously, and
with the real enthusiasm of a devout scholar, devout in the
sense of devoted ; his devotion to science, and to his own
particular branch of it — history — partook of the nature of his
religion; it was to his mind what faith was to his soul. It
was the spontaneity of his method, united to its finished art,
which exercised such fascination on all, and possessed such

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 153

an unrivalled power of attraction for the young, 'lliey were
interested and enchanted even before they were convinced.
If they arrived at the lecture-hall ignorant of the subject or
indifferent to it, they were quickly excited to a curiosity
which put an end to indifference and stimulated to enquiry
and investigation. Few minds ever possessed, in a higher
degree, the faculty of kindling the minds of others with his
own — a faculty which may be taken as the supreme test of
mental and moral power. Ozanam followed the Socratic
method, of which he had learned the secret from M. Noirot.
Taking hold of the mind on every side, by sympathy, by the
reason and the imagination, he compelled the student to
work with his own brains, while following the working of
another's.

M. Cousin once exclaimed, on coming out from a lecture
of Ozanam's, " The Lyceums and Colleges send us distin-
guished Professors, but the Abbe Noirot sends us men."
Following in the footsteps of his venerable master, Ozanam
strove, above all, to make men of his pupils, to impart to
them his own manly, vigorous spirit and love of work. No
one admired fine native gifts more than he did ; but there
was something that he prized even more than talent ; this
was industry, energy — bon?ie volonie', as he termed it. He
would take endless pains with a student whom he saw trying
to supplement by diligence and courage a nature scantily
endowed. He was gentle, even respectful, to dulness, as he
was to poverty in every shape ; and it sometimes happened
that, under his fostering influence, those who had utterly
failed with other masters unexpectedly developed with him
latent capacities which had hitherto remained stubborn and
unproductive. There was one poor lad at the College Stan-
islas who had been so long a fixture at the bottom of his
class that the masters had ceased to pay any attention to him,
looking upon him as hopelessly stupid. Ozanam, on being
appointed Professor at the College, watched the boy for a
time, and then called him up to his desk one day and encour*

1^4 Life and Works of Frederic Ozaiiain.

aged him kindly, taking great pains to make him understand
the subject of the lesson. The lad was so touched and sur-
prised that, when Ozanam was gone, he sat down and wrote
to thank him, assuring him his kindness should not be lost.
" /<? VOHS jure que je ferai V impossible pour vous prouver ma
reconnaissance" he said, and he kept his word. At the end of
the year he carried off the first prize at the Grand Concours,
and at the present moment he is a member of the Academy.
Nor was this an isolated case. Stanislas stood low amongst
the Paris colleges when Ozanam was named Professor of
Rhetoric there ; none of its pupils had ever gained a single
prize at the Grand Concours.* Tbe fii>t year of his profes-
sorship they carried them all away, and the number of pupils
m his class had doubled. He had contrived, during that
short time, to inspire them with such a passion for study that
many, of their own free impulse, asked permission to double
their year of rhetoric. The pupils loved him almost to
idolatry. When he appeared amongst them for the first
time he said, " I shall never punish you ; I mean to treat you
as men, to do my best for you, and to trust to your doing the
same. If you do not agree to this, if you behave Vikc gamins,
I will not lose my time with you." They took him at his
word. During the eighteen months that he remained their
Professor, he never had so much as to call one' of the boys to
order. Their respect showed itself in a reserve not common
to schoolboys : they never laughed at him. One morning,
when he was suffering severely from toothache, he entered
the room with a cap pulled down over his eaij ; one of the
boys tittered, and made some joke at the master's expense ;
he was immediately seized and hustled out of the class before
Ozanam was aware of any disturbance. No man in his
position was ever so much beloved in Paris; it was ahiiost an
adoration. After hanging upon his lips at the Sorboniie,
bursting out every now and then ps if in spite of themselves
into sudden gusts of applause, and then hushing one another

* The Grand Concours i^ a yearly competition between all the first colleges in Paris.

Life and Works of Frederic Ozatiam. 155

for fear they should lose one of the master's words, his young
audience would follow him out of the lecture-hall, shouting
and cheering, putting questions, and elbowing their way up
for a word of recognition, while a band of favored ones
trooped on with him to his home across the gardens. They
never suspected what an additional fatigue this affectionate
demonstration was to the Professor, already exhausted by the
preceding hour and a halfs exertion, with its laborious proxi-
mate preparation. No matter how tired he was, they were
never dismissed; he welcomed their noisy company, with its
eager talk, its comments and questions, as if it were the most
refreshing rest. There was, indeed, only one reward that
Ozanam coveted more ; this was when some young soul, who
had come to the lecture in doubt or unbelief, suddenly moved
by the orator's exposition of the faith, as it was embodied or
shadowed forth in his subject, opened his eyes to the truth,
and, like the blind man in the Gospel, cried out, " giving
thanks."

One day, on coming home from the Sorbonne, the follow-
ing note was handed to him :

" It is impossible that any one could speak with so much fervor and heart
■without believing- what he affirms ; if it be any satisfaction, I will even say
happiness, to you to know it, enjoy it to the full, and learn that before hearing
you I did not believe. \\'hat a great number of sermons failed to do for me,
you have done in an hour : you have made me a Christian ! . . . Accept this
expression of my joy and gratitude."

You have niade me a Christian / Oh ! let those who believe
and love like Ozanam tell us what he felt, what joy inundated
his soul when this cry went forth to him

He loved the young, and had the secret of gaining their
fullest confidence. The students came to him in all their
troubles, consulted him about their studies, about everything
in which they wanted direction, and he gave himself up to
them as if it was his most important business. He saw them
every morning from eight to ten, except on the day of his
cours, and for these two hours the room adjoining his study
was besieged as if it had been the ante-chamber of a minister.

156 Life and Works of J'lcikiic Czanam.

He never hurried tlie most tiresome lad away, no matter how
busy he was or how inopportunely tlie visitor had interrupted
his own important work.

It has been said with truth that Ozanam himself was never
young, that he was a man from his childhood, aged prema-
turely by anxiety, thought, and study ; it is certain that, as a
friend who had known him from childhood said, "he had
no youth in the stormy sense of the word "; but it is equally
true in another sense that he remained always young — young
in sympathy with the ideal aspirations, the ardent efforts, the
bright dreams, the high resolves and enthusiasms which con-
stitute the glory of the vision of youth and its loveliest pre-
rogative. All^ this Ozanam held to the last. He had seen
some of his own dreams vanish and his hopes denied, but
when he beheld a young spirit standing on the shore of life,
and taking wing for its seductive visionary flights, his heart
beat high in responsive pulses; he was never the one to chill
by the cold smile of experience the faith of the )oung pilgrim
in his fair vision of hope. AVhat if he soared too high at first,
and fell, ruffling and bruising his wings in the descent ? It
was better than never to have risen — better than to remain
crawling on the low, safe level of selfish aims and narrow inte-
rests and ignoble pleasures. Faith in the ideal was too strong
with Ozanam for the experiences of life, however disappoint-
ing, to destroy it.

His letters to his family prove better than anything how
earnestly he had at heart the Professor's duties which were
now his life's vocation.

TO M. SOULACROIX.

" Januaryz-j, 1842.
" I have resumed my class, and although the subject begun last year is now
more restricted, more special and less attractive, the audience continues as-
siduous ; always numerous and well-disposed.

" But the fuss of our arrival, the multiplicity of visits, the things that must
be seen to, a few articles for the newspapers, have not left me the necessary
leisure to occupy myself with writing a book.

" Many of my hindrances arise from the actual condition of science and

Jjfc and Works of Fredc}-ic Ozanafii, 157

thought in our time. Nowadays the profjress of historical and literary science
has led them to proceed like mathematical and natural sciences ; they isolate
themselves in their special sphere, they create a technical language for them-
selves, and, being thus inaccessible except to the small number of the initiated,
they cease to be popular. Hence it follows that books and lectures. which are
accessible to the generality of enlightened minds acquire no consideration
amongst a certain class of men, whose works, in their turn, dishearten general
readers by the severity of their form. Assuredly, with genius one would know
how to avoid both the pedantrj- of the learned and the superficial mediocrity
of the vulgar ; but genius is a rare and supreme gift which God bestows once
or twice in a century, and which has not been lavished in the present one.
For myself, I have almost always found that my best and happiest works have
been the least enjoyed by men of the guild.

" My class has had precisely the advantage of collecting a great number of
hearers, and consequently being accessible to them, without at the same time
failing in the gravity due to a special theme. Nevertheless, amongst the many
weighty personages who have followed it, no one has advised me to publish
my lectures simply revised from the stenographer. Besides, as I touched upon
many questions that are hotly contested in Germany, a book on this subject,
in order to be strong and weighty, would exact an immense amount of verifi-
cation. Criticism has a much firmer hold upon written than spoken words ;
it is also doubtful whether if in France, where purely literary questions excite
but feeble interest, a book on German literature in the middle ages would
meet with any great popularity. Several persons whom I consulted, especially
M. Mig^iet and M, Ampere, have advised me to choose for the theme of my
lectures something less general, an episode, so to speak, which would be more
restricted, so that I might treat it thoroughly, and thus satisfy the mor« exact-
ing judges ; at the same time, it should have a general and positive interest,
in order to attract favor from the wider public. 1 think I have hit upon these
very conditions in some lectures of last year — the best, perhaps, I have ever
g^iven — on the Holy Roman Empire of the middle ages. The empire, the
universal monarchy of Christian times, as the genius of Charlemagne con-
ceived and his successors imperfectl)- realized it, devek)ped in the public law,
in the philosophy and the poetry of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth
centuries, engaging in a struggle with the Papacy, falling in the struggle, and
leaving behind it nothing but a German empire dwindled at the present day
to the proportions of an Austrian one.

" It is not the history of the facts in detail ; it is above all the philosophical
history of the institution, such as the German writers represent it, that I find
stamped with this idea. A work like this, which has never yet been written,
would throw great light on the general affairs of old Europe. It would dis-
cover to the world the causes of the fall of Italy and the greatness of France ;
there would be room in it for the most celebrated personages of those times :
Gregory VII., Innocent IV., Frederic Barbarossa, Rodolph of Hapsburg. The
great doctors, jurists, and poets would figure on the scene as witnesses, and
thither all my studies would converge, only remanipulated and put into
action."'

I5<5 Life and J forks of Frederic Ozanam.

A\ the close of the scholastic year he thus relates his own
impressions of its results :

TO LALLIER,

'■^August 17, 1842,

" It was only at the dose of my lectures that the serious interest of the
subjeci revealed itself to me distinctly. It is a case of proving- that Germany
owes her genius and her whole civilization to the Christian education she re-
ceived ; that her greatness was in proportion to her union with Christendom ;
that she drew her power, her light, her poetry, from her fraternal connections
with the other nations of Europe ; that for her, as for others, there is, there
can be, no real destiny except through Roman unity, the depository of the
temporal traditions of humanity, as well as of the eternal designs of Provi-
dence. All this looks simple, natural, almost trivial in its self-evident truth"
this side of the Rhine ; but, on the other hand, the national pride plumes
itself in dreams of an autochthonous civilization from which Christianity has,
by the way, caused them to decline; in a literature which, without contact
with the Latin, would have developed into unexampled splendor ; in a future,
in fact, which promises to be magnificent, provided it steeps itself in unmixed
and unalloyed Teutonism. The German type is no longer Charlemagne, but
Arminius.

" These doctrines pierce in divers forms through the various philosophical,
historical, and literary schools, from Hegel to Goethe, from Goethe to Strauss.
It seems to me advisable to attack them at home, on their own ground ; to
show how alone they were simply barbarians ; how, thanks to their bishops,
their monks, to the Roman faith, the Roman language, the Roman law, they
entered into possession of the religious, scientific, and political inheritance of
modern nations ; how in repudiating it they fell back gradually into bar-
barism. An introduction which will precede and conclusions that will follow
the history of the literature of German chivalry, the principal object of my
book, will, I hope, bring out this idea in strong relief.

" I am occupied at present with the introduction. My former lectures are
of very little use to me for this chapter, whose importance I discovered rather
late. I have had to make immense researches — Germany under the Romans,
its military institutions, municipal organization, schools ; the first preaching
of Christianity before the invasion of the barbarians ; the action of the
Church in presence of and after the invasion ; the formation of the State, the
empire on one hand, the towns on the other ; lastly, the preservation and
propagation of letters ; the uninterrupted teaching of the languages and arts
of antiquity ; the admirable works achieved in the monasteries of Fulda and
of St. Gall become the schools of Germany.

" In the absence of general treatises, I had to hunt through particular histo-
ries, through the lives of saints and the chronicles of the towns. I think I
have discovered unknown and conclusive facts, which will establish the perpe-
tuity of the learned tradition, ia an epoch that we are accustomed to hear
branded with the ncime of barbarous, from Charles Martel to the Crusades. I

1

Life and Works of Frederic Oza?iatn. 159

am going to put this into shape (it will extend to about two hundred and fifty
pages), and I will print a portion of it in the Correspo?idant in order to elicit
some good advice."

XO HIS BROTHER CHARLES. ,

" To-day is Sunday, ^^'e are in a little palace with a garden on the edge
of the Luxembourg, whose green alleys form a delightful prospect from our
windows. This abode was built for Murat, brother-in-law of the Enip>eror
and King of Naples ; it came later on into the hands of the Prince de Clermont
Tonnerre ; from one fall to another it fell finally into the possession of M.
Bailly, who has kindly allowed us to take up our residence here during the
great heat.

" I remember that Alphonse must by this have left Lyons, that you are
alone, and that consequently a little brotherly visit will not come amiss to
you. And this reminds me, my dear boy, that we must streng^then our mind
and our heart so as not to be afraid of solitude and not to give way to those
temptations to melancholy which are sure to assail us in it. You will soon
be eighteen ; at this age I had to leave all — for in those days we had all to
leave — and to come away here, where I had not, like you, a brother and many
friends. Instead of that 1 had ^ lonely room, books that had no memories for
me, strange laces everywhere around me.

" For you, whatever God's will may be, wheresoever your vocation may lead
you, you will find a brother who will be a guide and a support to you ; you
will find the wav prepared for you, a circle of friends, many less dangers
awaiting you. You are in one of those periods of life when all the faculties
take a rapid development ; we feel-ourselves growing and maturing. If I were
near you, I would try and be of use to you ; I would perhaps help to clear
away your doubts, to direct your reading. It is a great pleasure to philoso-
phize. Only yesterday I spent more than an hour and a half discussing the
ideas of Plato with a friend. If you wrote to me fully on certain difficult
points, I would try and answer them by long and full explanations ; but you
will do better to talk them over with your fellow-students, some of whom have
great ability and experience. As to your reading, the most modern works
may prove useful if you use them under proper guidance. Read Descartes
and Malbranche ; I told you to get Mr. Dugald Stewart's Moral Philosophy.
You will be sure not to neglect the history of philosophy, without which any
other science is of small account.

"These coming holidays, if you have not taken your bachelor's deg^ree, I
may be of greater use to you. You are beginning to find out what a hard life
a young man has of it. Formerly it was the war, now it is the examinations.
Certainly there are seasons of hard work that are as good as a campaign. In
1837, for five months I worked regularly ten hours a day, without counting the
classes, and fourteen or fifteen the last month. One has to be prudent so as
not to injure one's health by the pressure, but, little by little, the constitution
grows used to it ; we become accustomed to a severe active life, and it benefits
the temper as much as the intellect.

i6o Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

"Adieu, my dear Charles. My love to our old Marie. I congratulate her
on her famous health ; they tell me she comes and goes and does wonders."

This furore of work, which Ozanam here describes as a
thing of the past, continued almost to the same extent in his
present Ufe.

" Beware," M. Victor le Clerc would say to him during the first year of his
cours ; " moderate the ardor of this verve that carries you away ; be always
an orator, but be more calm. This ardent, impassioned utterance that breaks
forth after prolonged meditation, this enthusiasm that you cannot master
and that masters you, is a source of uneasiness to your friends. Think of the
future ; we want you not to curtail any fraction of that future which is due to
you ; we desire it for you and for ourselves."

His cours and his hterary work were not the only calls upon
his time and energy. He was continually appealed to from
one side and the other to speak in charitable assemblies and
at working-men's meetings, and he never refused. He pre-
sided at a literary conference for many years, and directed the
studies of a number of young men who, thanks to his enlight-
ened guidance, have since risen to eminence. It was no vain
flourish of rhetoric, but the sincere promptings of his heart,
that dictated the following words, addressed one evening to
an assembly of young men at the Cercle Catholique :

" Every day our friends, our brothers, are killed as soldiers or missionaries
on the soil of Africa or before the palaces of the mandarins. What are we
doing meanwhile ? Seriously, do you imagine that God has appointed for
some to die in the service of civilization and the Church while others walk
about with their hands in their pockets, or lie down on roses ? O gentle-
men ! you, toilers of science, and you. Christian men of letters, let us prove
one and all that we are not cowardly enough to believe in a division which
would be an accusation against God who would have made it, and an ignominy
on us who would accept it. Let us be ready to prove that we too have our
battle-fields, and that, if need be, we can die on them."

He did prove it when the time came. Meantime, the work
that he accomplished in his sphere will never be known in
this world. God only knows the harvest that others have
reaped from his prodigal self-devotion, his knowledge, and
that eloquence which so fully illustrated the ideal standard

Life and Works of Frederic Ozatiam. i6i

of human speech described by Fenelon as " the strong and
persuasive utterance of a soul nobly inspired." For Ozanam
was not merely a teacher in the Sorbonne ; he was a teacher
of the world, and his influence shone out to the world through
the minds and lives of numbers of his contemporaries who did
not know that they were reflecting his light.

CHAPTER XVI.

1843-44.

The year 1843 ^^^ °^^^ ^^ fruitful activity in the Christian
camp. The question of the freedom of the schools, which
had subsided after the condemnation of the A'venir, had now
sprung up again, and was being agitated with greater vehe-
mence than ever. M. de Montalembert had given it a new
impulse by his pamphlet on the " Duty of Catholics in the
Question of Free Education," which appeared just as he was
inaugurating his career as a political orator from the Tribune
of the Chamber of Peers. The Correspondant, after many vi-
cissitudes, had emerged from troubled waters, and was start-
ing in a new career, which the names of its contributors
promised to render brilliant. Montalembert himself headed
the list, and then followed a long array of writers, each well
known in his line — MM. de Falloux, Ozanam, Veuillot, de
Champagny, Audley, etc.

This same year the Cercle Catholique was founded, under
the patronage of Monseigneur Affre and many distinguished
laymen. Its object was to create a centre for Catholic young
men coming to Paris for their studies. A library was formed,
and lectures were given on literary and scientific subjects.
Ozanam presided over the literary conference, and frequently
spoke himself. The Pere Lacordaire, who had returned from
Italy with heightened prestige and a more matured genius,
went there from time to time. M. de Montalembert, the Pere
de Ravignan, the Abbe Bautain, whose magnificent conferences
at Strasbourg, exposing the danger of separating abstract
philosophy from the supernatural lights of revelation, had ex-
cited such wide notice, all came in turn to contribute to the
instruction and entertainment of the Cercle Catholique.

162

Life and' Works of Frederic Ozanam. 163

A strong intellectual current was flowing through the
Catholic 'youth of that time, turning their minds to many
vital questions, such as the union of faith and science, the al-
liance of religion and liberty, the emancipation of the Church
from all oppressive responsibility to the State. They were in-
tensely interested in the philosophy of history, and in no por-
tion of it more than that most misunderstood and calumniated
of epochs, the Middle Ages. It was no uncommon thing to
see one of these young students devoting his leisure to hunt-
ing out the authenticity of a breviary, or the solution of some
disputed point concerning the notation of music in the thir-
teenth century. Art and science absorbed them far more than
politics.

Ozanam exercised a decisive influence at the Cercle in all
artistic questions. Few, indeed, were more competent to in-
terpret the true mission of art, its beautiful faculty of express-
ing faith and love, of translating the emotions of the soul and
the inspirations of genius by outward symbols and material
signs, while, at the same time, his erudition was as inexhausti-
ble on all subjects pertaining to art as if he had made this his
sole study. It sometimes happened that a young man who
had spent a week at the Royal Library wading through vene-
rable folios for information on some obscure point, or about
some comparatively unknown painter or sculptor, was aston-
ished to hear the President, to whom he applied for an opin-
ion, sum up, in a it\i rapid sentences, ten times the information
he had obtained in his week's digging.

In this first year of its existence Ozanam made a
speech at the Cercle Catholique which was an event. The
subject was the literary duties of Christians. It was one
in which many leading Catholics of the day felt person-
ally concerned, and it required to be handled with great
delicacy, so as not to inflict wounds where the speaker's ob-
ject was to heal them. The Archbishop of Paris was
present, knowing beforehand that Ozanam was to speak,
and on what subject, and his presence oa this day was in-

164 Life mi d Works of Frederic Ozanam.

tended as a public mark of adhesion. After dilating on the
advance of science through faith, the impossibility of acquir-
ing true science without orthodoxy, and the duty of making
art the vehicle of faith to humanity, the orator came to speak
of the mission of the controversialist.

"If," he says, "the rules of Christian controversy have been defined and
imposed, it is not permitted to violate them with impunity. In the he^t of the
fight there is a danger that we do not think of. It is easy to offend God. The
violent instincts of human nature, restrained by Christianity, break loose and
manifest themselves here. . . . Tertullian, carried away by the African im-
petuosity of his genius, pursued with the same animosity the false gods and
the weak Christians who sacrificed to them ; he refused to receive them back
to the reconciliation promised to repentance ; he would not forgive the Church
for pardoning them ; and ended by apostatizing out of hatred of apostasy.
In the quarrels of Arianism the invectives of Lucifer di Cagliari broke forth
like thunder ; he remained inflexible to the scandal of the Council of Rimini,
but when the penitent bishops were taken back into communion with Rome,
he separated from her rather than share that communion with them. . . .

"Discussion has other dangers for those whom it is striving to convince.
Assuredly, when Christians embark on the painful service of controversy, it is
with the firm will to serve God and to gain the hearts of men. We must not,
therefore, compromise the holiness of the cause by the violence of the means.
Pascal understood this, and says somewhere : ' The way of God, who does
all things gently, is to put religion into the mind by reason and into the heart
by grace. . . . Begin by pitying the unbeliever ; he is already wretched
enough. , . .'"

Then, calling to witness the examples of the Fathers of the
Church, Ozanam goes on to quote the conduct of St. Basil
keeping up a touching correspondence with the sophist Liba-
nius, surrounding his old pagan master with the filial piety of
a disciple, and never despairing of him ; St. Augustine faith-
fully pursuing his faint-hearted friend Licentius ; then he con-
tinues :

"We must never begin by despairing of those who deny. It is not a ques-
tion of mortifying but of convincing them. Refutation is humiliation enough
for them, when it is conclusive. Whatever be the disloyalty or the brutality
of their attacks, let us show them the example of a generous controversy.
Let us beware of exasperating their pride by abuse, and let us not drive tliem
to damn themselves rather than retract. The number of those who doubt is
greater still. There are noble minds who are led astray by the vices of early
education, or by the force of evil example. Many of them feel bitterly the
misery of their unbelief. We owe them a compassion which need not ex-

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 165

elude esteem. It would be politic, even if it were not just, not to thrust
them back into the lessening crowd of impious unbelievers, to distinguish
their cause, and not to confound strangers with enemies. . . . There aresome
who, after having waited a little while for these tardy ones, lose patience, and
gjow irritated with their slowness. Let us not lose patience. God is patient
because he is eternal ; so likewise are Christians."

It is hard to see how words so full of the wisdom of Chris-
tian charity should have provoked anger and resentment, and
drawn down on the speaker that " abuse " from which he so
gently adjures them to refrain towards their enemies. Yet so
it was. A. fierce article on this portion of the speech ap-
peared next morning in the Univers.

The following letter gives us Ozanam's estimate of the at-
tack :

" I seize a moment of leisure to send you these few lines with the Bulletin
du Cercle Calholique, in which you will find a speech by the present writer on
the Literary Duties of Christians * and the Archbishop's allocution in answer
to it. I was sending it about to our friends also, by way of justification against
a violent attack of the Univers. I allude to an article which appeared on the
Feast of the Ascension, entitled Moderation and Zeal, in which I was stigma-
tized as a deserter from the Catholic struggle. It was a reply of that journal's
to my speech, not a word of which was addressed to it. They have apologized
to me ; but I had reason to fear that my friends at Lyons were somewhat
alarmed about me, and this is why I send you the documents connected with
the whole affair. You will see therein that the Cercle Catholique invited me
to speak at an imp)ortant meeting where Monseigneur Affre presided. In ac-
cepting this honor, I consulted his Grace beforehand, and he specially entreated
me to dwell upon certain questions concerning which he appeared glad to
have an opportunity of publicly explaining himself. The greater portion of
the clergy of Paris highly disapprove of the passion and violence by which
certain newspapers and pamphlets are compromising the cause of the Church.
The entire assembly applauded my remarks, and those which the Archbishop
added to them consoled and fortified the general opinion. A few days after-
wards a speech of M. de Carne's in the same strain induced the Cham-
ber of Deputies to send up the petitions to the Minister. Earnest thought
and serious discussion will end, thank God, by carrjnng the day against these
polemics of abuse and fury, which are more suited to our enemies than to us.

"You must not suppose, however, that in the difficulties of our present po-
sition we have hard words for none but the imprudent champions of truth. I
am doing my best, and that is but little, in concert with M. Lenormant, M.
Cctur, and a few others, to maintain a vigorous struggle against the doctrines
of the Professors of the College of France. While MM. Michelet and Quinet

• See CampleU Works of Ozanam, vol. vii. p. 147.

i66 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

were attacking Christianity itself under the name of Jesuitism, I tried in three
consecutive lectures to defend the Papacy, monks, and monastic obedience.
I did this in presence of a very large audience, who were stamping and hiss-
ing somewhere else the day before ; and yet I met with no interruption or
disturbance, and in continuing the literary history of Italy— that is to say, of
one of the most Christian countries that exist under the sun — I met at every
step, and I shall take every opportunity of pointing out in the course of my
lectures, the benefits and the prodigies of the Church.

" Help me by your prayers ; ask for me the spirit of strength and k>ioiv-
ledge, which the whole of Christendom is imploring on bended knees during
these Whitsuntide solemnities."

" Of all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, that which we need most is strength"
he says elsewhere to M. Foisset ; "and we know so little what it means
that many fancy they have got it because they have vi(3lence and passion,
which are, on the contrary, like all that is convulsive, proofs of uneasiness and
weakness."

This spirit of strength was, above all, desirable at a crisis
when angry discussion tended to produce that dissension
which is the most fatal element of weakness.

" You want to know if the Catholics in Paris are united," he says; " I be-
lieve they were never more united as to the end, but never more divided as to
the means. It is easy for you to follow from a distance the movements and
divisions of the fighting army. . , . Amongst the foremost in the battle
you will perceive the enfans perdus of the Univers, whom everybody disowns,
either because of its violence or its want of talent."

Ozanam's zeal was, indeed, held in check by a degree of
prudence and far-seeing sagacity rare in one so inexperienced.

" My fear always is, "he writes, "that the Catholic questions may have been
raised too soon, and before our number, our influence, and our works have
put us in a position to maintain the struggle. I am frightened lest laymen
without grace d''etat, without authority, may have incurred the fearful respon-
sibility of drawing the Church of France into a crisis whose issue it is impos-
sible to foresee. But, being once inevitably drawn into it, and public opinion
being taken hold of, when the exaggeration, the violence, and the gross igno
ranee of certain writers had compromised the Catholic interests of which they
made themselves the organs, I rejoiced to see the controversy lifted out of
this wretched skirmishing, and replaced on its proper level by M. de Monta-
lembert, in the first instance, and after him by M. de Carne, M. de Vatimenil,
Pere de Ravienan, and our venerable prelates, notably the Archbishops of
Paris and Lyons. These are the true representatives of our rights — the ones
we run no risk of ever having to disown. Here it is no longer a quarrel of
pedagogues and beadles ; it is not even a discussion between the colleges and
the little seminaries : it is the grand question of the relations between Church

Life and W'orki of Frederic Czanam. 167

and State, the Priesthood and the Empire, which is never terminated, but re-
appears at all the most eventful epochs of histor>' — in the age of the Fathers,
the age of the Crusades, the age of Louis XIV., the age of Napoleon. It is
being stirred up now between statesmen and churchmen, and may comf)el the
former to study religion and the latter to practise liberty ; it may completely
detach the clergy from those traditions of absolutism to which they still cling ;
it may stir the country deeply ; it is right that a great people should be occu-
pied with great things.

"We must not, however, blind curselvesto the peril. Religious ignorance
is so complete and prejudice so strong, and we have so few men who are capa-
ble of winning over public opinion to our side ! Who knows ? This prema-
ture effort may give rise to a terrible reaction, may provoke an irruption of
Voltairianism, and the faith of a great number may perish ! But at the point
that things have now reached it behooves us to stifle these fears and to hold
on together, united, and resolved to conquer or die with honor. Last year it
was still possible to postpone the battle ; but now any attempt at temporiza-
tion would only serve to divide our forces. We must follow the inevitable
course of men and things, and trust to God who is leading it, holding our-
selves ready foreverj- sacrifice, wiih the certainty that if they do not avail
for the success of the struggle now they will have their prize sooner or later,
in this world or the next ; remembering that when we are most inclined to
think our efforts, our time, and our trouble lost. Providence may be drawing
from them a far greater good than we dream of."

While Ozanam was carrying on the warfare in his own field
he was bravely seconded by M. Lenormant, who occupied the
chair of M. Guizot as assistant Professor of History.

The conquest of this distinguished man to Chrisiianity was
of tecent date. ' For three years he had been undergoing a
fierce inward struggle, whose final issue was awaited with in-
tense interest by many who were watching the event with
widely divergent sympathies. There are few things more im-
pressive and exciting than the spectacle of a human con-
science wrestling with itself, and, with the self- forgetting
simplicity of real earnestness, admitting others to witness the
struggle, casting aside false shame, making no secret of its
doubts, its faltering modification of convictions, and the
gradual ingress of light, until at last the fulness of truth illu-
minates the darkness and the triumph of faith is complete.
M. Lenormant had been affording this wonderful spectacle to
all who had attended his cours for the last three years. He
had come before them as a sceptic and had addressed them

l68 I.ijf and Works of Frederic Oznuam.

as such ; but the moment his disbelief was shaken his con-
science was too honest to go on feigning a tone of negative
conviction he no longer felt. He did not hide that his philo-
sophical creed was staggered. He dissembled neither his ir-
resolution nor his own surprise at it. At last a day came
when the battle was over, and victory declared itself on the
side of faith. The event was greeted by the young popula-
tion of the Sorbonne with mingled delight and indignation.
But the indignation largely predominated. M. Lenormant at
once followed up his conversion to Christianity by publicly
vindicating and exalting what he had formerly denounced,
and denouncing what he had exalt^l.S^

This conduct, as was to be expected, provoked general
hostility amongst the anti-Christian majority, and the cours oi
the savatit^ lately so popular, became the scene of hostile and
riotous demonstrations. The same intolerant apostles of
tolerance were clamoring furiously at the cours of M. Dupan-
loup, where they would not allow the Professor to speak ac-
cording to his conscience of Voltaire, the man wlio, of all
others, had used the most reckless license in speaking of men
and things. Older and cooler heads were inciting and direct-
ing these young fanatics in their proceedings. MM. Miche-
let and Quinet resented Lenormant's conversion as a personal
insult, although " the convert of the Sorbonne," as they de-
risively termed him, had scrupulously avoided attacking, or
even indirectly refuting, the diatribes of the too revolutionary
tribunes of the College de France. They, however, deter-
mined to leave nothing undone to silence him, and their
influence gave a serious color to a movement which otherwise
might have passed off as a mere college ebullition. Ozanam
saw at once the gravity of the situation. He made a point
of attending M. Lenormant's lectures whenever he could,
and his sagacity soon took in the drift and motive of the tur-
bulent scenes that were enacted there.

"I can assure you," he says to Lallier, " it is no mere uprising of the
schools,, no fanatical onset of a troop of hot-headed boys. It is a great deal

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 169

more and a great deal less. It is an affair got up without passion, but with
perfidious cunning, in the bureaux of a few revolutionary newspapers, in
order to maintain the irreligious portion of the' public in the kind of fever it
has been in these last fev/ years, and also to create rtew difficulties in the way
of the Government. As these people have all the obstinacy of a parti pris,
and as the Government is as weak as it always is when called upon to take the
part of religion, there is reason to fear the rows will be repeated, and though
there be only, like the last time, sixty rioters, if they return to the charge ten
times they will end by getting the coiirs shut up. At any rate, it will not be
done without energetic protestations; for the Catholic youth have shown
more than usual firmness in this matter, which will at least have the effect of
drawing their ranks closer and strengthening them for the contest.

" But you can imagine what a grief it is to me to see a cours so able and
so salutary in its doctrines imperilled by such miserable intrigues, and be-
trayed by those whose duty it is to defend, there as elsewhere, the cause of
public order.

" Alas ! my dear friend, what an amount of harm is done in the world
through the inconsistency and faintheartedness of good people I For my
jiart, I shall do my best to prevent my cause being separated from that of
Lenormant. So long as his lectures are disturbed I shall continue to attend
them, and .use all my influence with a certain number of young men to re-
cruit the audience. If you were here you would help us by your presence and
your advice. Sustain us at least in the distance by your prayers. It is on
Thursday, the 8th, that the cours is to be resumed."

It was as Ozanam feared. The recommencing of the lec-
tures was the signal for the renewal of the hostile demonstra-
tions. M. Lenormant's appearance was greeted with hisses
and yells and unseemly manifestations of dislike. He began
to speak, but his voice was drowned in hootings and blas-
phemous cries. Ozanam, who was present, unable to contain
his indignation, leaped up beside the lecturer and stood for a
moment surveying the tumult with proud defiance. The
courageous action drew forth an instantaneous salvo of ap-
plause; but Ozanam, with a scornful gesture, commanded
silence, and proceeded to tell the assembly what he thought
of their behavior, and what value he set on their plaudits ; he
spoke with a fiery vehemence that startled all into attention;
he adjured them in the name of liberty, which they so loudly
invoked, to respect liberty in others, and to allow every man
the freedom of his conscience. Tlie effect of the harangue
was magical ; the tumult ceased, and M, Lenormant con-

lyo Life and Works of Frederic Ozatiam.

tinued, or rather began, his lecture, and finished it without
interruption. The next day, however, the cours was closed
by order of the (jovernment — authority thus yielding to vio-
lence, where by a little firmness it might so easily have taken
the upper hand and constituted itself the guardian of social
peace and the bulwark of social principles.

This cowardly and cruel precedent did not daunt Ozanam,
or induce him to abate one iota of his independence; he con-
tinued his lectures without mitigating in the slightest degree
the out-and-out Christian tone of his teaching. The boldness
of this conduct, while it heightened his prestige with his own
party, increased his general popularity. His name became a
power in its sphere, and was cited everywhere as an example
of the energy and growing strength of the Catholics.

It once happened, during the noisy days of the Lenor-
mant riots, when the learned Sorbonne was transformed into
a battle-field, that some person, meaning to be witty, scratched
out the words " litterature etrangere" after Ozanam's name
on the door, and wrote over them, " theologie." He was in-
formed of it as he was entering the hall. He said nothing
until he had finished his lecture, and then, as he was about to
descend from his chair, he observed, in a tone of great dig-
nity -. " I have not the honor to be a tlieologian, gentlemen,
but I have the happiness to believe, and the ambition to place
my whole soul with all my might at the service of truth."

The courageous profession of faith was greeted by loud
and general cheers.

It was, in truth, a position to the full as perilous as it was
glorious which he now occupied, and one which demanded
no ordinary combination of wisdom, tact, and courage in
order to reconcile personal dignity and interest with the stern
dictates of principle. For he had become the standard-bearer
of the Christian cause in the sphere where he had been the
first to introduce it, and he was now the central object of
attack from its enemies. The fate of his colleague w^as a
warning whose significance he could not misunderstand. His

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 171

own popularity might seem to offer a guarantee for his
safety; but the firmest popularity is at best but a throne built
upon sand, which a sudden gust of wind in the shape of a
revulsion of public feeling may upset at a moment's warning.
If he opened a direct attack on the Sorbonne, it was tanta-
mount to giving up his chair; and his chair was his bread —
that blessed panem quotidianwn which represents peace of
mind, the one earthly ambition Ozanam had ever deliberately
cherished. And now he was not alone : he had a wife and
child to guard it for. Moreover, to resign would be to
desert his post, and leave the field open on every side to the
enemy.

The old Sorbonne, too, claimed some allegiance from him
as from a favorite son, on whose young head she had lavished
high honors prematurely. He was the Benjamin of the gray
old Alma Mater, and his heart went out to her with dutiful
affection. All the manliness and loyalty of his nature re-
coiled from striking her. His position was a Gordian knot
which seemingly nothing but a fatal stroke could sever, fatal
whichever way it fell. Seemingly, but not in reality. Pere
Lacordaire, whose judgment on Ozanam's conduct through-
out this critical time may be taken as conclusive, observes : *

" It is seldom that in the most delicate position, when everything seems im-
possible, there is not some point which reconciles all things, just as in God
attributes which look most dissimilar meet somewhere in the harmony of a
perfect unity. Ozanam retained his professorship ; it was his post in the
danger. He did not directly attack the body to which he belonged ; this was
his duty as a colleague, and he was bound to it in gratitude. But he con-
tinued in the most complete and avowed solidarity with us— I mean, though I
have no right to count myself amongst them, with those who were defending
with all their heart the sacred cause of freedom of education. No tie that
bound him to chiefs or soldiers was loosened. He took his part in all the
meetings, all the works, all the inspirations of the time, and what he did not
officially enunciate in his chair or in his writings, his influence proclaimed
with a boldness that was more tlian a confession. Nor did a shadow of mis-
trust or coldness ever cast a cloud for one moment on the high rank that he
occupied amongst us. He preserved undiminished the affection of the Catho-

» CEuvres 4u P. Lacerdaire— Ozanam, vol. v. p. 404<

172 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

lies, the esteem of the body to which he belonged, and, outside these two
camps, the sympathy of that floating, fitful crowd, the public, which sooner or
later decides all things."

Ozanam 's great and universal popularity is a matter of sur-
prise to many who hear of it only from a distance and cannot
penetrate its secret. It is difficult to appreciate this fragile
possession without being apparently guilty of exaggerated and
dubious estimates.

Popularity, as it is vulgarly understood, is a worthless thing,
but in its true and higher sense it is a noble privilege. To be
popular means to be loved not by a few but by many, by the
multitude. It is the empire of one soul over the souls of num-
bers, an empire which, if rightly used, represents the noblest
power any mortal hand can wield. It seldom falls to the
hand that tries to clutch it. It may come for a moment, gild-
ing life like a flitting sunbeam, but it quickly passes away,
leaving a chiller darkness behind. Ozanam never courted
popularity ; perhaps no man holding a public post ever sought
it less. When it found him out he only valued it inasmuch as
it helped him to make popular the doctrines that he taught.
This very obliteration of self no doubt drew the public favor
to him unconsciously. Then his faith was in itself a power.
Men delight in the sight of enthusiasm and strong conviction,
even when they do not share them. A faith of any sort is a
power. Sceptics, who do not believe in belief, envy those
who do. A man who represents the most unpopular convic-
tion, who serves it and stands by it through thick and thin, is
sure to gain influence in the long run. Undying devotion
to a cause eventually conquers the respect of its enemies,
though it may not make its champion popular. The qualities
of the man himself must do this. He must have a heart, or
he must pass for having one. Ozanam was essentially a man
of heart. His genius excited admiration, his piety com-
manded respect, but it was his kindness that made him loved.
Lacordaire says that he had a charm " which, added to his
Other gifts, completed in his person the artisan of a predes-

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam, 173

rined enchantment. He was gentle to all men and just
towards error."

Just towards error ! What a gospel of charity is com-
pressed into the words ! Ozanam denied to no man freedom
of thought, the right' to differ from him, Moreover, he be-
lieved all his life that the majority of sceptics were ready to
embrace truth, could they only be induced to hearitexplauied.
This is why he strove so humbly to make his own exposition
of it attractive and persuasive. He had intense pity for un-
believers, looking upon them not as wilfully blind or as crimi-
nal, but as brothers who, for some unknown cause, had been
denied that blessed inheritance of faith which illuminated his
own life, and the sense of gratitude and of his own unworthi-
ness made him merciful. His extraordinary indulgence
towards error was sometimes a stumbling-block to his friends
when they were all young togetlier; but there is not one of
them now who, on looking back, does not recognize that Oza-
nam's faith was all the more powerful for being so sweetly
tempered by charity. To youth, especially, his tolerance was
almost boundless ; yet no one will dare to say that there was
the faintest touch of cowardice or false liberality in this con-
descension towards intellectual error. " It was," as M. Am-
pere very justly observes, '' a largeness of view which taught
him to recognize sympathies outside the camp where he was
fighting." It was also a deep reverence for souls which
taught him to respect the mysterious relationship between
God and his creatures — a tender humility which forbade him
to sit in judgment on others, or to quench the smoking flax.

He frequently pointed to M. Lenormant as an example of
the triumph of grace in a soul that was loyal in its intention
to serve the truth, even while actively attacking it, and he
would warn his Catholic friends of the danger of repelling
others in similar circumstances by harshness and unjust judg-
ments. This terror of alienating a seeker after truth made
him extremely gentle in dealing with an adversary. He al-
ways said that a man who began to examine religious doctrine

174 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanain.

should be treated with respect, because the moment a soul set
out to seek God — that is to say, truth — he was on the road
towards hun. He resented bitterness in religious discussion
as an act of trespass to the faith, whose chief commandment
is "That ye love one another." No -controversial triumph
was worth anything in his eyes if it was purchased at the cost
of charity or a violation of " the peace of love." In the
eleven volumes which he has left us, and which deal with a
variety of controversial subjects, his lash is always raised
against falsehood, injustice, and vice, but there is not one line
that is cruel or harsh to individuals. There is nowhere the
least trace of pique, or revenge, or anger ; he holds the scep-
tre of truth with a steady hand, but never strikes with it except
at falsehood. He pleads far more than he condemns, and his
denunciations breathe more compassion than wrath.

The same large spirit of universal charity presided over his
almsgiving and all his dealings with the poor. He made no
invidious distinctions as to creed. Wherever there was naked-
ness to be clothed, tears to be wiped away, a soul to be com-
forted, he recognized a claim and answered it. The Abbe
Perreyve tells a touching anecdote which proves this better
than a volume of description. A Protestant congregation in
Paris collected a sum of money for charitable purposes and
gave it to their clergyman, who, having no pressing cases of
distress at the moment, was embarrassed as to how he should
best apply it. He knew Ozanam by reputation, and the idea
occurred to him that he would be the likeliest person to know
how to employ the money ; so, acting on the generous inspi-
ration, he took it to him and requested him to use it according
to his judgment. We can fancy how touched Frederic's heart
was by the delicate proof of confidence. He carried the
offering the same evening to a conference of St. Vincent de
Paul, and related the incident with an emotion which spread
to all present. One member, however, rose, and, after prais-
ing warmly the disinterested charity of their Protestant bene-
factor, suggested that the money should be first applied to

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 175

relieving the Catholic poor, who were more numerous, and
then that the surplus should be given to some indigent Pro-
testant famihes.

"As he proceeded," says the Abbe Perreyve, "I saw Ozanam's features
contracting impatiently, and I guessed, by the tremulous movement of his
hand as he drew it nervously through his long hair, that we were about to wit-
ness one of those explosions which he could not control. ' Gentlemen,' he
said, starting to his feet when the speaker had finished, ' if tliis proposal had
the misfortune to prevail — if it be not distinctly understood that our members
succor the poor without reference to creed or country — I shall this moment re-
turn to the Protestants the alms they have entrusted to me, and I shall say:
Take it back ; we are not worthy of your confidence ! ' "' _

We are not much surprised when the Abbe adds: "They
did not put it to the vote."

But, if he was intolerant of intolerance, Ozanam had an
unmitigated, almost violent, horror of evil in itself. The sight
of vice or falsehood excited him as a personal wrong excites
most of us. He resented it with a fierceness very foreign to
his gentle nature; and yet, with all this, his pity for the of-
fender never failed.

" Often," says the Abbe Perre)'ve, "on hearing any one sa}' of a person
whose life was steeped in wickedness, ' He is a lost man ! ' Ozanam would re-
mark : ' After all, if it be true that God has His own secret, as I believe, we
may rest assured it is a secret of mercy.' "

The service of the poor occupies such a prominent position
in Ozanam's life that it becomes of interest to know how he
performed it. It was essentially a service of love. His man-
ner towards the poor was considerate and deferential as
towards his equals. He invariably took off his hat on enter-
ing their poor abodes, greeting them with his courteous
formula, " I am your servant." He never preached to them;
after giving whatever he had to give, he would sit and chat
on any subject likely to cheer or interest them. When they
came to see him they were not kept in the hall, but were
shown into his study, where he would draw forward a com-
fortable chair, and behave in every way as towards visitors
whom he was glad to honor. At Christmas he always took

176 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

them some little present — a book, a picture, or some trifle lie
knew they fancied. One New Year's Eve he was telling his
wife about a poor family who had known better days, but
were now reduced to such shifts that they had been compelled
to pledge a handsome chest of drawers, the last remnant that
remained to them of former comfort. He said he was greatly
tempted to go and redeem it and send it to them for their
New Year's gift. His Amelie was seldom inclined to check
his generous impulses, but she felt it right to show certain
prudential reasons for his not following this one. He saw the
•force of them and yielded. The day was spent pleasantly in
paying and receiving friendly and official visits, according to
the custom of Paris; but when evening came, and his little
girl was showing him the profusion of toys and bon-bons that
had poured in on her since morning, he turned away with a
sigh and sat silent and absent. Madame Ozanam enquired
anxiously if anything had occurred to distress him. He con-
fessed that the thought of those poor people without their
chest of drawers was weighing on him, and the sight of all
this money wasted on Marie's pleasure smote him like a re-
proach. Amelie entreated him to go and satisfy the prompt-
ing of his heart. He hurried out, and in a short time re-
turned radiantly happy.

It was noticed by some of his friends that, after the general
Communion at Notre Dame on Holy Thursday, Ozanam, in-
stead of going straight home to his breakfast, disappeared in
another direction. They watched him^ and found that he
went first to the baker's and then to a certain number of poor
families, where he distributed loaves. He frequently ended his
thanksgiving by an act of charity of this sort.

Seldom is his eloquence more tenderly inspired than when
pleading the cause of the poor. He has left some pages on
Almsgiving, its duties and joys and dangers, which are amongst
his finest. Speaking of the help which honors and that which
humbles those who receive it, he says:

" Help is humiliating when it appeals tc r.ic n froni below, taking; heed of their

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanatn. ■ 177

material wants only, paying no attention but to those of the flesh, to the cry
of hunger and cold, to what excites pity, to what one succors even in the
h)easts. It humiliates when there is no reciprocity, when you g^ive the poor
nian nothing but bread, or clothes, or a bundle of straw — what, in fact, there
is no likelihood of his ever giving you in return. . . . But it honors when it
appeals to him from above, when it occupies itself with his soul, his religious,
moral, and political education, with all that emancipates him from his pas-
sions and from a portion of his wants, with those things that make him free,
and may make him great. Help honors when to the bread that nourishes it
adds the visit that consoles, the advice that enlightens, the friendly shake of
the hand that lifts up the sinking courage ; when it treats the poor man with
respect, not only as an equal but as a superior, since he is suffering what
perhaps we are incapable of suffering ; since he is the messenger of
God to us, sent to prove our justice and our charity, and to save us by our
works.

" Help then becomes honorable, because it may become mutual, because
every man who gives a kind word, a good advice, a consolation to-day, may
to-morrow stand himself in need of a kind word, an advice, or a consolation ;
because the hand that you clasp clasps yours in return ; because that indigent
family whom you love loves you in return, and will have largely acquitted
themselves towards you when the old man, the mother, the little children shall
have prayed for you."* " Do you suppose you pay the priest to whom the
State gives a hundred crowns t a year to be the father, the schoolmaster, the
comforter of the poor village lost in the mountains ? or the soldier who gets
five sous a day to die under the flag ? Why, the soldier gives the alms of his
blood to the country, and the priest that of his words, his thoughts, his heart,
that will never know the fireside joys ! And the country does neither the in-
justice to think that it pays them ; it gives them an alms that will enable them
to resume to-morrow the lowly self-devotion of to-day, to return to the bed-
side of the plague-stricken or under the fire of the Bedouins. . . . Don't tell
me, then, that I humiliate the poor man when I treat him as I treat the priest
who blesses and the soldier who dies for me. Alms are the retribution of ser-
vices that have no salary. ... In our eyes the man who suffers serves God,
and consequently serves society like him who prays ; he performs a ministry
of expiation, a sacrifice whose merits rebound on us ; and we trust less for our
safety to the lightning-conductor above our house-tops than to the prayer of
the poor woman and her little children who are sleeping on a truss of straw in
the garret under our roof. And let no one say that in treating poverty as a
priesthood we aim at perpetuating it ; the same authority which tells us that
we shall always have the poor amongst us is the same that commands to do all
we can that there may cease to be any. . . . WTien you dread so much to lay
an obligation on him who accepts your alms, I fear it is because you have never
experienced the obligation it confers on him who gives. Those who know the
road to the poor man's house, whose feet have swept the dust from his stairs,
never knock at his door without a sentiment of respect. They know that in

* Melanges, i. p. 292. t 30c francs

i-jS Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

accepting bread from their hand, as he takes the light from God, the poor man
honors them ; they know that the theatre and every other place of amusement
can be paid for, but that nothing in this world can pay for two tears of joy in
the eyes of a poor mother, nor the grasp of an honest man's hand when one
has enabled him to wait till he gets work. We are all of us subject, unfortu-
nately, to movements of brusquerie and haughtiness towards our inferiors ;
but there are few men so wanting in delicacy as to speak harshly to the poor
man whom they have relieved, to forget that an alms commits the donor, and
closes his lips for ever to anything that might seem like a reproach to the re-
cipient.""""

Ozanam was far, however, from advocating that indiscrimi-
nate ahnsgiving which unwisely benevolent persons are apt
to indulge in. " A severe inquisition should search out hid-
den distress, interrogate sorrows that do not cry out, visit the
attic where the sick man suffers in silence, and penetrate even
into the prison where the unfortunate find no echo to bear the
voice of their anguish to the outer world." f This prudent
theory did not prevent his being sometimes deceived in prac-
tice. There was an Italian whom he had assisted for a long
time, and finally procured a situation for in a house of busi-
ness ; the man betrayed the confidence of his employers, and,
having again fallen into great distress, he came back for help
to his former protector, who, justly incensed at his behavior,
ordered him away, and bade him never come near him again.
No sooner, however, had the man left the house than Oza-
nam was smitten with remorse ; he said to himself that it was
" wrong to reduce any one to despair ; that one had no right
to refuse a mouthful of bread to the vilest scoundrel ; that he
himself would one day want God not to be inexorable towards
him, as he had just been towards a fellow-creature redeemed
by the blood of Jesus Christ."

Unable to bear the thought, he seized his hat and rushed
out in pursuit of the Italian, whom he overtook in the gardens
of the Luxembourg.

We have seen how constantly he entreated those who gave
to enhance the value of their benefits by bestowing them with

• De VAutKonc, vid. Melanges, i. p. 398.
f Cimlisatior. an Sfne siicU, i. 7;.

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. ijg

their own hand, mstead of through agents and valets. " How
can the recipients of this sort of bounty feel grateful for it, as
they would be if it were differently bestowed ? " he would
urge. '■ Who ever saw any person moved to tears by the
regularity with which the street fountains flow every morning,
or the gas is lighted for them every evening ? "

He had great order in his almsgiving. The budget of his
charities was regulated beforehand every year as strictly as
any of his personal expenses, and rose in proportion to the in-
crease of his means ; he advised all his friends to adopt his
plan, and thus save themselves the annoyance of never know-
ing exactly how they stood with regard to the fulfilment of
the duty, and from saying sometimes " I cannot afford it,"
without being sure whether they really can or not. It would
be impossible to convey in words an adequate idea of the
sweetness, the inimitable grace with which he accompanied
his own necessarily limited donations. Pere Lacordaire's de-
scription may be appHed to him with truth : " There is a way
of giving, a charm that disguises the benefit, a transparency
that lets you look into the heart and love it, a something gen-
tle, simple, a kindly anticipation that draws the whole being,
and makes man prefer the spectacle of kindness to that even
of genius."

CHAPTER XVII.

1844-5.

OzANAM, on coming to Paris, had settled in a small apart-
ment in the Rue de Fleurus overlooking the gardens of the
old Medicean Palace, within a few minutes' walk of the Sor-
bonne. The house was very simple, but full of household
gods that beautified it ; there were venerable old mahogany
gods, that spoke to him of his kindred in remote times, and
blessed while they served him ; there were cherished little gods
that reminded him of his childhood ; there were bright gods
of hope and expectation, tender Madonnas, and laurel-crowned
poets, that smiled with a promise while they beckoned on-
ward and upward. His young wife was there the queen of
the little Parnassus, a living centre to the dumb divinities
around.

They had brought Gui-gui with them. The old Lyon-
nese servant was a pillar of strength in the little household.
She had now been nearly seventy years in the service of the
Ozanam family, having entered as a tiny maiden in attendance
on the cocks and hens, until she gradually worked her way
up to the high functions of cook, a sceptre which she now
held and exercised with jealous sway. Her fabulous economy
was only equalled by her devotion to her master. Every
member of the family consulted her on all important occa-
sions, and she gave her opinion with rare good sense; need-
less to say that, as time went by, she gave it sometimes with-
out waiting to be asked. Gui-gui was a stanch conservative,
and held on like grim death to the customs of her youth ; she
wore the picturesque peasant dress of her native village, un-
modified by Parisian fashions, and mounted guard cer the

180

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. i8r

family traditions with the stern remonstrance, " Your grand-
mother did this ; your grandfather did so-and-so." Her spare
moments were spent saying never-ending rosaries for the souls
of the departed masters, whose children she looked upon as
her own, and whose babies she sang to sleep with the same
songs that had lulled four generations of the race.

Ozanam was thoroughly happy, in full swing ot literary-
work, at rest for the present, and fairly secure for the future,
when an event occurred which suddenly changed the whole
aspect of his life ; this was M. Fauriel's death. He had been
an invalid for years, yet the end was as great a surprise as if
it had overtaken him in rude health.

TO M. FOISSET.

" July 29, 1844.
"... Yes, the death of M. Fauriel came on me like a thunderbolt. I
had in him a kind patron and an enlightened counsellor, whose interest in-
sured me, as his substitute, the perpetual possession of a chair which his infirm
health no longer permitted him to occupy. His friendship was my security.
. . . Now, what are they going to do with me ? God alone knows. After
four years of a professorship whose success has surpassed all my hopes, to
which I sacrificed everything, even in some degree my health, having been
besides on the best of terms with everybody, and now that I hold no title from
the University, outside the Faculty, it is hard to suppose that they would
coolly dismiss me, and place another Professor in the chair I have been filling.
The Faculty is of this opinion, and tlie majority of the members are disposed
to present me first on the list »o the Minister, which would at once settle my
nomination ; only they think it fit, out of resjsect to the memory of M. Fauriel,
to wait for the re-opening of the schools. A small minority, however, op-
poses these kind intentions, insists on my age — thirty-one — my want of scien-
tific titles, and my recent entrance into the University, and suggests that they
should leave me time to win my spurs by prolonging the vacancy, and just
allow me to hold the professorship next yta^r a.s c/iarge de cours ; that is to
say, on a precarious title.

" I am quite alive to the perils of a provisional position in a time of strife
like the present, when the kindly dispositions of public feeling may change so
quickly. All my efforts, therefore, are brought to bear on this point. Several
friends are seconding me by active steps ; but all may help me by their
prayers. All I ask of God is that He will take the delicate matter into His
own hands, so that I may neither betray the duties of my state by imprudence,
nor my honor as a Christian by pusillanimity.

" After all, it may be best for my salvation that I should not succeed ; and
in that case all I desire is firmness, resij^'nation, and peace of heart ; to be re-

1 82 Life and Works of Frederic Vzanam.

sigjied to everything, even to the precarious, even to uncertainty, which is per-
haps the most painful of all, but which we should accustom ourselves to, since
God has placed it everywhere, in life, in death, in health, in fortune, and that
He saw fit to let us live — we who so desire to be certain of our revenues, our
projects, oar successes — in the most terrible of all doubts, ' whether we are
worthy of love in His eyes.'

" These sentiments, that I am trying- hard to penetrate myself with for these
last fifteen days, are fortunately firmly enthroned in the heart of my wife, who,
for my greater trial, is absent from me at this painful crisis. I had to remain
here in the breach, and 1 shall of course have to remain on through all the
holidays."

The trial was prolonged beyond the holidays. Ozanam
continued in the same uncertainty as to his fate until the
close of November, when he was nominated Professor at the
Sorbonne for life, in the vacant place of M. Fauriel, and with
tiie increased salary belonging to the position. M. Ampere
is the first to whom he sends the good tidings :

TO AMPERE.

'■'■■zyi November, 1844.

" I come to announce the great news to you. At last, on Saturday at two
o'clock, the Minister of Public Instruction signed my nomination. The pre-
sentation of the Academical Council had already been unanimous, like that of
the Faculty. The Royal Council had given its opinion similarly on Friday.
It seemed therefore as if nothing remained to be done but to sign ; and yet, to
justify what you said so truly about the terrors of the last moment, we were
informed that the Minister would not terminate the matter, but ordered the
paper for the classes to be posted up with a blank after my name, so as to give
him further time for reflection. M. le Clerc was obliged to exercise no ordi-
nary zeal and firmness in order literally to compel the signature. But at last
the thing was done, and was this morning executed by my taking the oath
before the Dean ; it is published to-day in all the newspapers, and borne by
these organs of publicity to my friends in the four corners of France. We
were looking forward to this conclusion certainly ar a great happiness, and yet
I must confess that our joy has been far greater than we anticipated. It is
almost humiliating to be so much moved by a temporal advantage ; but at the
first moment this end of all our fears and anxieties, the new-found security,
the sense of peace, overcame Amelie and myself more than I dare to say.

"I was so happy to see this dear life, superadded to my own, henceforth
sheltered, as far as it humanly can be, from those cares and vicissitudes wnich
wear out the noblest hearts ■; to see an honorable position, and one worthy of
her, secured to her, and at the same time to feel myself in conditions of inde-
pendence which will permit me to do my duty without incurring mortifying
suspicions and threatening interpretations ! Then the congratulations of our

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 183

friends followed quickly on these first emotions, and added to their sweetness,
till we can scarcely tell what has given us most pleasure, our own success or
the pleasure it has given so many kind, excellent, and devoted persons.

" I knew well already, God having taught it me by experience, that we need
our friends in sorrow, but I had yet to learn how much we want them in hap-
piness. Oh ! we see it now well enough by the void which your absence
causes us, and this is why I felt I must tell you, as to a brother at full length
— the way you like it — all that we felt on this great occasion. You must en-
joy your work a little, you who, after God, are the author of all this pros-
perity ; you who welcomed me as a brother into the house of your good and
glorious father, who started me on the road, who led me from trial to trial,
step by step, to this chair, where I am now seated, only because the one man
who is really worthy to fill it refuses it.

" How beautiful are the designs of Providence when we see them as a whole
and in the distance ! . . .

"We see in this event," he writes to M. Foisset, " a merciful dispensation
of Providence to point out to me how I am to serve God in this world, to
render my duties easy to me, because I am weak, and to prepare me, by a
moment of prosperity, for the trials ot the future. How indeed can we do
otherwise than recognize the Divine intervention in an event of which we now
know all the vicissitudes, the obstacles that have crossed it, and the unlikely
coincidences that we had to overcome ? We are really less astonished at the
result than at the manner in which it has been brought about, the unanimous
support which I obtained successively in the Royal Council, in the Faculty, in
the Academical Council, and this without their exacting from me a single
step in advance, the least concession or reserve ; without hinting, as they
might have done, that I should exercise more prudence in my lectures ; with-
out so much £is asking me to write, asit is customary to do, a letter presenting
myself as a candidate, lest they should seem to be imposing any conditions on
me. It is in fact impossible to push kindness and delicacy further than the
Dean of the Faculty has done. But what crowns my satisfaction is the way
our numerous friends have shared it ; one would think it was a personal suc-
cess for them all ; and so it is, for we have no manner of doubt that their
prayers helped on our success, just as we count on them now to enable us to
prove grateful and worthy of it."

Ozanam's youth had been a serious obstacle in his way.
M. Guizot, the youngest Professor the University had yet
admitted, was seven-and-thirty when he was nominated, and
Ozanam was five years younger. This precedent made his
success the more striking. The pupils of the College Stanis-
las were the only portion of his friends who did not rejoice at
it; they were proud of his triumph, but it was to cost them
dear. No Professor of the University was allowed to give

1 84 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

lessons in any minor college, consequently their master's new
honors involved their losing him. Young as the boys were,
they had realized the privilege of his teaching, and occasion-
ally expressed this fact to him in verses, tlianking their " guide
savant et aimable " for leaving the learned crowd outside in
favor of the humble audience of a schoolroom. One of these
affectionate effusions assures him —

" Votre coeur respirant du fardeau de la gloire,
Y trouvera du moins des coeurs reconnaissants."

In their despair at losing him they wrote to the Minister,
M, Villeraain, imploring him to suspend the prohibition in
their favor, and allow their dear master to remain with them.
They tried to enlist Ozanam himself on their side, and wrote
him a letter which is too characteristic to be omitted :

"Monsieur : We cannot find words to express to you the painful surprise
with which we received yesterday the news of the misfortune which threatens
us. Those who have only known you a few months, and those who, after as-
sisting a whole year at your lectures, earnestly hoped to enjoy them much
longer, are all equally afflicted, and I have received the sad mission of express-
ing to you this universal sorrow. Still all hope is not perhaps over, and how
ever unworthy we may be of occupying so precious a time as yours, we dare
entreat you to take our cause into your oivn hands, and to preserve to us, ty pos-
sible, t/te master whom we have most loved. "

Their efforts proved unavaiUng. M. Villemain did not re-
lent, but Ozanam was touched to the heart by this letter,
which he carefully preserved. Yet with all his kindness they
had not found him an easy-going master. On the contrary,
he was, as a Professor, exceptionally severe. As an examiner
he gave no quarter. He so mistrusted his natural tendency
to indulgence that conscientiousness drove him into the op-
posite extreme, and once in his official capacity of judge he
was impartial almost to hardness, more especially towards
candidates in whom he took a personal interest. There is a
story told of a young protege' whom he had taken infinite
pains to prepare for his examinations, and who, when the day
of ordeal came, was within an ace of being dismissed, owing
to the merciless rigor of Ozanam's interrogations. From this

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanatn. 185

time forth the candidates rather feared than sought a friendly
recommendation to him, saying that it only doubled the chance
of failure. But his greatest severity was displayed towards
ecclesiastical students. One day a young seminarist called,
on him to enquire into the reasons of his failure at the recent
examinations. Ozanam received him with the utmost kind-
ness, and pointed out to him in detail the various flaws of his
version ; then suddenly changing his tone, and assuming a
severe countenance, he said : " Your very dress, Monsieur,
compels us to be more exacting. When one has the honor to
wear the livery of the priesthood, one should not lightly expose
it to a similar disgrace."

M. Soulacroix was named Chef de Division in the Ministry
of Public Instruction in the spring of the following year
(1845), a circumstance which, by drawing his wife's family
closer to him, was a source of sincere rejoicing to Ozanam.
He continued to work arduously at his pen, but complains
much of the inadequate results. " I am dying with impa-
tience to resume my researches on Germany, which were be-
ginning to interest me intensely just as I had to interrupt
them," he says to M. Foisset. " But really I despair of ever
doing anything considerable, because of my slowness and ray
facility for losing time. Ah ! if I only had the activity that I
see in you, in my father-in-law, and that I used to see in my
father, but which is becoming rare, and seems as if it would
disappear altogether. It strikes me that the great secret of
education nowadays should be to destroy this tendency of
the mind to wandering. Of all the qualities of t\\Q grand sihle,
that which upheld all the others was perhaps the one that
Bossuet prized so highly, and the want of which he so bitterly
deplored in his pupil — application."

This year of prosperity, as he calls it, held yet another
blessing in store for Ozanam, a joy that put the crown on all
those that went before.

1 86 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

" TO M. FOISSET.

" August "jth, 1845.

" My friends have a great deal to do this year helping me to give thanks.
After so many favors which fixed my vocation in this world and put an end to
the scattering of my family, a new blessing has come to me, the greatest joy,
probably, it is possible to experience here below : I am a father !

' ' We prayed much ; we begged for prayers on ever>' side ; never did we feel
greater need of the Divine assistance ! ^Ve have been heard above and be-
yond all our hopes. Ah ! what a moment that was when I heard the first cry
of my chila ; when I beheld that little creature, but that immortal creature,
which God has confided to me, who brought me so many delights and so many
duties ! With what impatience I waited for the moment of her baptism ! We
have called her Marie, which is her mother's name, as well as that of the pow-
erful protectress to whose intercession we attribute this happy birth. The mo-
ther is now nearly well again, and is able to nurse her child. Thus we shall
not lose the first smiles of our little angel. We will begin her education early,
and, at the same time, she will begin ours ; for I perceive that Heaven has sent
her to us to teach us a great deal, and to make us better. I cannot look upon
that sweet little face, so full of innocence and purity, without seeing there, less
obliterated than in us, the sacred impress of the Creator. I cannot think of this
imp>erishable soul, of which I shall have to render an account, without feeling
myself more penetrated with my duties. How could I dare teach her lessons
that I did not practise ? Could God have found a kinder way of instructing me,
of correcting me, and setting my feet on the road to heaven ? Oh ! you, dear
friend, who exercise so worthily these grand functions of fatherhood, remember
me before God, and ask for your young friend the light, the inspiration, the
strength that he needs from above. Remember my child, too, who will pay it
back to you some day, I hope. Her mother, who is sincerely attached to you,
bids me say how grateful she would be for an Ave Maria when you are gathered
together for family prayers. Your paternal confidences of last year come back
to us, and we sigh in thinking that some day we shall perhaps have to marrj-
our little Marie ! . . . Adieu. I must terminate sooner than I wish a letter
that was begun, interrupted, and taken up again ten times in the midst of the
Baccalaureat. which keeps me at the Sorbonne all day. I scribble off ten lines
while M. Guigniaut and M. Gamier are examining, in philosophy, Greek, and
Latin, unfortunate candidates who know very little about them ; and I lay
down my pen to put questions in history, geography, and literature, traveUing
over all space and time and then coming back to you."

His little treasure was a daily-increasing source of tender
and poetic delight to him,

" There is nothing more delicious on this earth," he says, " than on coming
home to find my beloved wife with her little baby in her arms. I then make
a third figure in the group, and I would willingly lose myself for whole hours
in admiring it, if presently a little cry did not come to warn me that poor

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 187

human nature is very fragile, that many perils are suspended over that tiny
head, and that the joys of fatherhood are only given us to ssveeten its duties."

The examinations at the Sorbonne had kept him so occu-
pied all through the summer that he was not able to escape
from Paris until September, when he went with his wife and
child to Nogent, a little village outside Paris.

" All this summer," he writes to Lallier, at the end of August, " I have seen
no other verdure than the green table where we hold the examinations
of the bachelors. These last three days I have been seated at it from ten in
the morning till seven in the evening ; and I can only manage to write you a
line in the short interval between the question of geography and the question
of history. This is why I don't touch on the great events of the day. . . ,
The number of our conferences has been increased by five new ones this last
month. We have six now in London. Do you remember how cross we were
with you in 1833, when you brought us poor De la Noue, who increased our
number to nine ? Now we are nearly nine thousand ! So you see these poor
Catholics are not dead yet. Now, as in the days of St. Paul, quasi morientes
et tamen viventes"

The holidays brought rest only in the shape of a change of
work to Ozanam. This year they were employed in finishing
what he calls his " interminable volume " on the History of
Christian Civilization amongst the Germans.

" The quiet of the country affords me a leisure which I have not known for
a long time," he writes; "we are about three-quarters of an hour beyond
Vincennes, on a rising ground which overlooks the Marne. The garden is
large, the air is pure, the weather lovely. My wife is picking up her strength
rapidly, and my child is opening out like a little flower. It is one of those
moments of bliss which are not often granted to us in life, and which make us
feel more keenly the goodness of Providence."

CHAPTER XVIII.

1846.

The year 1846 was unmarked by any event of importance
in Ozanam's public or private career. He continued to work
as if he had a second Hfe in reserve to supplement the frail
one he drew upon so pitilessly. His health was giving way, but
he did not or would not see it. His literary work was daily
increasing, and absorbed all the time he could spare from his
professional occupations. This did not prevent his devoting
himself, as in the past, to the service of the poor. After the
exhaustion of his morning's lecture at the Sorbonne, he was
constantly to be heard in the evening lecturing to an assembly
of working-men in the crypt of St. Sulpice, and he would put
forth his powers as earnestly here as when addressing the
most fastidious and cultivated audience. Those who have
heard him speaking to the uneducated classes declare tliat it
was wonderful how he contrived to bring the riches of his
learning, and his lofty mind, within their reach, and how in-
tensely they responded to the effort. " My friends," he said
to them on one occasion, " we have each of us our trade in
this life. My trade is to wade through old books ; well, I can
assure you that under the dust of these old folios I come upon
lessons which the past has bequeathed to us under the most
fascinating form. Let me tell you one of these old stories
that charmed away the long evenings for our fathers." And
with a grace and an eloquence which the Sorbonne might
have envied, he went on to relate to them one of those beau-
tiful legends that Ireland would seem to have stolen from the
East, and transfigured with her Christian touch. The rough

Life and Works of Frederic Ozatiam. i8g

audience listened in breathless delight, understanding and ap-
plauding. Then came the moral :

'•These legends," continued the orator, " are symbolical of another world,
where all that we have done in this one is punished or rewarded. We are all
of us like the weavers of the Gobelins, who, following out the pattern of an un-
known artist, endeavor to match the threads of divers colors on the wrqng
side of the woof, and do not see the result of their labor. It is only when the
texture is complete that they can admire at their ease these lovely flowers and
figures, those splendid pictures worthy of tlie palaces of kings. So it is with
us, my friends ; we work, we suffer, and we see neither the end nor the fruit.
But God sees it, and when He releases us from our task. He will disclose to
our wondering gaze what He, the great artist, everywhere present and invis-
ible, has woven out of those toils that now seem to us so sterile, and He will
then deign to hang up in his palace of gold the flimsy web that we have
spun."

It is not surprising that Ozanam should have been a popu-
lar speaker with the working-men. He counted himself one
of them, and his eloquence had in it a note of real personal
pride when it dwelt upon the dignity and power of labor, of
human toil in every field. His works abound in fine passages
on labor as one of the regenerating forces of the world, and
of arguments and examples tending to show how the laborer,
oppressed and despised by Paganism, was rehabilitated by
Christianity.

" Let us see what Christianity has done for the oiivriers,'" he says. " Free
labor has no greater enemy than slavery, consequently the ancients, who held
to slavery, trampled free labor under foot ; they spurned it and stigmatized it
with the most offensive names. Even Cicero — that great and wise man
whom we are so fond of quoting — Cicero says somewhere that there is no-
thing liberal in manual labor ; that trade, if it be small, is to be considered
sordid, but, if vast and opulent, need not be too severely blamed.* , . . Ac-
cording to the law of the Twelve Tables, the debtor who could not pay was
placed at the discretion of his creditor to be sold as a slave, or else cut up into
as many pieces as there were creditors, so that each one might have his share.
In the days of Senecus they no longer cut him up, but they compelled him to
sell his children, and, so far on as Constantine's reign, the children of the
insolvent debtor were sold on the public market-place. This is how free la-
bor fared under the ancients. Christianity restored it to its original rank by
the example of Christ and the apostles, by that of St. Paul, who went into

* Dc Officiis, 1. i.e. 4?.

lyo Life a fid IVorks of Frederic Ozanam.

partnership with the Jew Aquila at Corinth rather than eat bread which he
had not gained in the sweat of his brow."*

Ozanam, not satisfied with proving the respectability of la-
bor, called in poetry to invest it with dignity and beauty.

"When we plunge into the valleys of the Vosges and the Jura, into the
heart of those rugged countries where the old German manners were so long
retained, the first thing that strikes us is the wild majesty of the scene. But,
on looking closer, we find that a power stronger than nature has been at work,
pursuing her to this sanctuary, subduing and compelling her to serve, not
sparing even those things which seemed created for repose and liberty. I al-
lude to the power of labor. Where shall we find a grander image of calm
than tiiose broad trees that seem born to do nothing, like the sons of the an-
cient kings ? They must, nevertheless, come down from their heights and go
and serve the peasant, who will make them uphold the roof of his cabin, or
the navigator, who will use them as ribs for his ships. What is freer than the
torrent ? And yet labor has come and seized it in its bed, and imprisoned it,
and bound it like a slave to the mill. Say not that these manufactories are a
blot upon the wild beauty of the desert : the ring uf the hammer and the smoke
of the forge proclaim to you that creation obeys man, and man God. " t

The universal law of labor applies with him in equal force
to the sons of toil who till the earth and draw water from the
river, and to those laborers who dig in the field of science, art,
or literature. Here it is that he expresses with perfect sin-
cerity the sense of kindred with his lowlier brother workmen.

Speaking of the progress of the French language from its
ruder stages under Clovis, Charlemagne, the Middle Ages,
and up to the period when Pascal came to define its limits,
and Bourdaloue and Bossuet to ennoble and refine it, and
bring it to that state of perfection which it is the duty of living
men of letters to preserve, he goes on to. say :

" Hence the obligation of work. Work is the common law of mankind ;
it is the law of the mind as well as of the body ; for it was also to the labors
of the mind that those words pronounced on the day of the Fall applied —
' Thou shalt eat thy bread in the sweat of thy brow." Look at that long tradi-
tion of labor in the Church, from Origen, the man with the bowels of brass, as
St. Augustine called him, who began so late, and nevertheless saw everything,
down to St. Thomas, who died at nine-and-forty, leaving us seventeen vol-
umes in folio. In more modern times, see Bossuet rising at two o'clock in the

• Civilisation an $me siecU, vol. ii. p. 66.
^ Etudes Cermaniques, ii. chap. ix. p. 649.

Life and Works cf Frcdt'iic Oz.:/ia/u. 191

morning to resume the work he had scarcely interrupted ; see d'Aguesseau de-
claring that a change of work was the only recreation the mind needed ; see
those magistrates of the seventeenth century going forth at six in the morn-
ing to take their seats on \.\-,& fleurs-de-lis, giving tlie whole day to the public
functions, the evening to the education of their children, and dividing the
night between study and prayer. Seven or eight hours a day given to science
alarms the solicitude of our friends for our wretched health. Let us remem-
ber, nevertheless, that we are not dispensed by faith from fatigue and watch-
ings. Labor, the chastisement of the Fall, has become the law of regenera-
tion. It is labor that produces glorious epochs, when it finds inspiration
there, and, when it does not find it, it still produces useful men and estimable
nations."*

The examinations for the Baccalaureat came round, and
brought their usual increase of work to the Professor, who
again describes himself in the sultry August heat, " sitting for
eight or ten hours a day at that blessed green table," and try-
ing to write a hurried line to a friend between Greek and
mathematics, " surrounded by yawning colleagues and trem-
bling candidates," and pining inexpressibly for a breath of
fresh country air. " Nothing is comparable to the pleasures
of the woods and fields," he says ; " the balmy air, the very
odors of the farmyard, are all conducive to health; the coun-
try is full of teaching and full of consolation, and we deprive
ourselves of both by remaining penned up in the walls of our
cities." But he turns, after this little petulant outbreak, to
deeper sources of consolation :

" We Catholics have this happiness : that our cause wills to be served at the
same time in different ways, that adapt themselves to the diversity of charac-
ters and minds ; it requires men of war and men of peace, the crusade of con-
troversy and the proselytisra of charity. I admire those who fight gloriously
in the breach., but I cannot help preferring for my friends and myself the other
ministry, which, if less brilliant, is also less dangerous. ..."

But this life of arduous toil aiul study could not go on with
impunity for ever. The body is long-suffering, and bears a
great deal from the noble tyranny of the soul, but, driven
beyond certain limits, it rebels and vindicates its rights.
Before the end of the examinations Ozanam fell ill of a ma-
lignant fever, which placed his life in great danger. -At the

• Dtvoirs Liitiraires tU's Chriiiens^Milanges, i. p. i6a

ig2 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

beginning of September he had begun to recover, and writes
to M. Leon Bore from Meudon, on the 2 2d :

"My long silence would have been an unpardonable ingratitude if it had
been voluntary ; but just as I was taking up my pen to thank you for your
two kind letters, I was seized with the first symptoms of a fever of such an
alarming character that 1 should probably not have got over it but for the ex-
cellent care of our common friend, M. Gourand, and the intelligent and cour-
ageous self-devotion of Amelie, which was an immense support to me through
this crisis. God has, hosvever, seen good to spare me a little while longer, in
order tliat I may have time to grow better ; and as if to prolong the salutary
warning of the illness itself, my convalescence, which has lasted nearly a
month, still keeps me in a state of weakness that renders the least bodily ex-
ertion, the slightest mental effort, impossible. I never beforey^// what a poor
creature man is. I can't tell you how humiliated I feel to be eating and sleep-
ing well, and yet so exhausted that an hour's application suffices to fatigue my
head and compel me to lie down, I use the first liberty the doctors have
granted me to repair a delay which was weighing on my heart. ... I was
for a long time overwhelmed with innumerable and imperative occupations,
to the excess of which, so they say, my illness is to be attributed. Now I am
condemned to complete idleness, and, the better to draw my mind away from
men and books, they have buried me in the woods of Meudon. My wife has
come in to protest against my writing too much. I let her take the pen out
of my hand, just for the sake of giving a good example to all the husbands of
the earth."

The iUness had found him so reduced in strength that it
was astonishing that he should have battled through it at all ;
and now, though nominally recovered, he continueil in a state
of such alarming prostration that it became a question whether
he had vitality enough left to rally to his normal state. The
doctors declared his only chance was to take a year's com-
plete rest. Even if pecuniary difficulties had not intervened,
this was a difficult prescription for Ozanam. How was that
ardent mind, with its sleepless activity, to be kept idle for a
whole year? There was but one way of doing it ; this was to
spend the interval in travelling. M. de Salvandy, the Minister
of Public Instruction, hearing of the circumstances, hastened
to facilitate things by sending the Professor on a literary mis-
sion to Italy. It was done with the kindest intention, and
not with the view of turning the period of relaxation into a
change of fatigue ; but Ozanam's extreme conscientiousness
gave the mission too much of that character.

CHAPTER XIX.

1847.

Starting in November, 1846, Ozanam and his wife made
a tour in the south of France, and then went by slow stages
through Genoa and Florence to Rome, where they were to
pass the winter. Under this delightful regime his health
rapidly revived, although he did not spare it in the service of
his mission. Every journey he made produced a book, some-
times two. The result of the present one was his volumes en-
titled Unpublished Documents to serve for the Literary History
of Italy from the Eighth to the Thirteenth Century^ and that
charming book, The Franciscan Poets. The first he considered
his work, the latter was his recreation. But the work had
presently to be given up. The fatigue of copying out Latin
and Italian MSS. in the libraries and museums all the morn-
ing, then classifying and arranging them in the afternoon,
began to tell upon his health, still far from restored, and he
was compelled to give up altogether by the time he reached
Rome.

" Plead for me with the mauvaises langues, who are accusing me of silence
and laziness," he writes to his brother from Rome in Febniary. "Ask Charles
to call on M. Ampere, and M. Ballanche, and Monsieur Recamier, and to tell
them I will write in a few days, and that I am ashamed of not having done it
sooner. The fact is that at Florence my time was entirely taken up with
researches in the libraries, etc. Since I have been here I have made a scruple
of writing a line until I had finished my never-ending preface, which is draw-
ing to a close now. But a few days after my arrival I was seized with a ner-
vous malaise, without, however, experiencing any of those alarming symptoms
which accompanied this summer's attack of fever ; only I was incapable of any
sort of work, and quite in harmony with the public mind here, which was. all
turned towards/"//« and jollifications."

193

194 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

The first /<^/(? that he assisted at was a Low Mass celebrated
by the Pope at the Church of St. Apollinarius. He describes
the church as decorated with draperies of red, white, and
blue, embroidered in silver and gold, and illuminated witli
countless lustres, candelabras, and torches.

" These decorations are apt to gfaock us at first," he remarks, "accustomed
as we are to the naked majesty of the Gothic churches, and yet there is some-
thing joyous and pleasing about them. They are suited to a people who treat
more tenderly and familiarly with God, and they have the appearance of a
family rejoicing. It was indeed at a fete of this sort that we were about to
assist. The students of the Seminary * were drawn up on either side of the
door in silence, but with faces all alight with pleasure. At a quarter-past
eight the bells rang out, and the Pope entered with a small cortege. He wore
a white soutane, and carried his scarlet hat in his hand. He said a Low Mass,
cissisted only by four priests, slowly and with great fervor. At the moment of
the Communion all the Seminarists approached two and two and received
Holy Communion from the hand of the Holy Father, who looked in truth like
a father in the midst of his children. Up to this point it was all most edify-
ing, but it became sublime when the Pope, having given Communion to all the
ecclesiastics, e.\pressed the desire to distribute it to the people. Then the
guards fell back, and the Sovereign Pontiff descended the steps of the altar,
holding the Blessed Sacrament in his hands. At the same moment there was
a forward movement in the crowd to meet him and fall down before the Com-
munion-rails. The steps were covered with two rows of the faithful, crushed
together, trembling, overcome to tears; no distinction of any sort. There
was there the Queen Dowager of Saxony, poor Italian peasants, women and
men of many nations, and, in the midst of the crowd, my Amelie and I side
by side, as we have ever been in joy and sorrow, as we trust to be to the end
of life, and beyond it. . . . The sacred procession drew near to us. I
beheld that admirable countenance of Pius IX. all illuminated by the torches,
aglow with the sanctity of the act, the moment — nobler, gentler than ever.
I kissed his ring, the ring of the fisherman, which for eighteen centuries has
sealed so many immortal deeds. Then I tried to see no more, to forget every-
thing, in order to remember only Him who is our Master, jind before whom
Pontiffs are but dust."

Every letter that Ozanam writes from Rome is marked with
tender enthusiasm for Pius IX. He describes his person as
" well adapted to his glorious role of popularity ; his figure
is lofty and well-formed, his face slightly colored, and, as he
is but fifty-four years of age, he would still look young if it
were not for the gray that has begun to streak his hair, and

* St. Apollinarius is the church of the Seminarists in Rome.

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanatn. 195

the wrinkles which already testify to the burden of the Pon-
tificate. They say that he is greatly changed since his elec-
tion, but what has not changed is the expression of his face.
I never saw so much nobleness, innocence, and sweetness
combined. When he speaks he is quickly moved, and his
emotion, his penetrating voice, stirs all hearts." Their joyous
sojourn in the Holy City was for a time clouded by the sud-
den death of a young brother of Amelie's, to whom they were
both much attached.

" The terrible news reached us just as we were finishing a Novena for his
recoverj'. . . . Our beloved brother died like a martyr, after living like a saint.
At the age of three-and-twenty he took leave of this world, I do not say
with resignation, but with a Divine joy. He leaves a terrible void in his family,
to whom his sufferings were a sorrow, but whom he consoled by his virtues,
his serenity, and his noble intellect. His sister has not yet got over the blow,
and for the last twenty days my one care has been to support her under this
affliction."

But Easter was at hand, and no sorrow in Catholic hearts
could withstand the flood of consolation which it brings, with
its pomps and blessings and festal glories. Ozanam grows
quite lyrical in his letters home now that Easter has come.

" TO M. PROSPER DUGAS.

" Rome, Easter Sunday, 1847.

"... This is the moment to speak to you of the Papacy, now that I
have just assisted at its most solemn pageants, and am still under the spell of
the emotion calfed up by that most thrilling spectacle which is to be seen on
earth, the papal Mass and the benediction of the Urbi et Orbi. . . .

"On Easter Sunday some twenty thousand persons assisted at Mass (r.t St.
Peter's), and there was still an immense space free for the ceremonies ; you can-
not conceive anything more grand, more harmonious, than the arrangement
of the sacred cortege and its processions from the throne to the altar. At the
moment of the elevation, when the PojDe turns round and holds up the blessed
Host and the precious Blood, and all the orders of the Church represented
by their chiefs and delegates, all the Christian nations represented by their
ambassadors, their penitents, their pilgrims, are prostrate in a common adora-
tion ; when all the memories of Catholicism are gathered round this altar,
where the sovereign pontiffs have offered the Sacrifice, from St. Peter, whose
tomb is underneath, to those generations of popes and saints of all times en-
tombed below the pavement of the basilica — oh ! then, my friend, one is con-
scious of an. infinite joy in seeing thus worthily honored our God, so often

196 Life a?ul Works of Frederic Ozanam.

disowned and outraged. Heretics and schismatics who happen to be present
are not proof against the impression ; you see them bow their heads with the
rest, and sometimes exclaim involuntarily, ' How beautiful ! ' But how shall
I describe to you what I beheld and felt when, Mass being finished, the great
doors ojjened to pour forth the multitude on the picizza, already covered with
an enormous crowd ? — for it is calculated that over sixty thousand men were
assembled there, waiting for the blessing ! The country people came flocking
in in their picturesque costumes ; the soldiers stood under arms, and an im-
mense concourse of Romans, who are not in the habit of following these cere-
monies, were present this year in honor of the first Easter of Pius IX.

"And yet, when the Pope appeared on the balcony, accompanied by the
cardinals, all was hushed into a silence so sudden, so deep, so universal that
you heard from beginning to end every word of the prayers uttered by the
Pontiff, until the moment when he rose, with an indescribable majesty, and
blessed the city and the world, and then from every point of the vast piazza
there resounded. Amen ! It was the grandest act of faith I ever witnessed in
my life.

" The religious ceremony was barely concluded when the populace could no
longer contain itself, and, what was never known under the preceding ponti-
ficate, vivats burst forth, handkerchiefs and hats were waved, and the hearts
of the people seemed carried away by an immense love. The civic guard
wanted to put their shakos on the end of their guns and genuflect, and thus
render to Pius IX. a military honor that was only given to Napoleon ; but the
Pope, being informed of this intention, forbade any political demonstration
to be mingled with what was entirely a sacred solemnity. Nevertheless the
civic guard waited a long time on the piazza, amidst an enormous crowd, in
hopes of being able to salute the Holy Father when he passed on liis way
back to the Quirinal. He again baffled their eagerness by delaying his return
until four in the afternoon, and then, when his carriage appeared, the people
made a rush to unyoke the horses, and when the Pope forbade this they
accompanied him to the Quirinal, that is to say, more than half aleague's dis-
tance, and the palace square was instantaneously flooded with a countless
multitude, who greeted Pius IX. with the liveliest acclamations. He had to
show himself again on the balcony, and give them once more his pontifical
and paternal benediction. The evening before four hundred young men,
with lighted torches, assembled under his windows, to sing him a cantata, and
wish him, according to the pious custom of the countrj', a happy Easter. The
evening before that again, as he wished, over and above the official washing
of the feet, to go and wash the feet of the poor at the Pilgrims' Hospital, when
he went out the streets were illuminated, as if by magic, as he passed along.
The people did what they are in the habit of doing for the Viaticum when it
is carried at night : everybody went to the door or stood at the window with a
lamp in their hand. But these lamps that are so quickly extinguished are
but a pale symbol of the ardent love of the people for their bishops and their
prince. . . .

" You are aware what opposition the Pope meets with from a portion of the
Sacred College, the Prelacy, the Roman nobility, and the diplomatic body ;

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 1^7

but don't fancy he is as isolated as people would make out. He has rallied to
his views some of the cardinals who are held in the highest veneration for
their virtues and their capacity ; Utile by little he is reforming the Court, where
he had so many adversaries.

"There is less to build on with the laity, hitherto unacquainted with busi-
ness, and with their political education yet to be acquired, so as to fit them for
a suitable place in the government or the administration. This is what Pius
IX. is strenuously aiming at, to get as many laymen as possible into the dif-
ferent consultative commissions which he has formed, and, what is more de-
cisive, in forming the tribunal of censure, recently instituted, of one ecclesias-
tic andybwr laymen.

" This institution has attracted great notice, and given umbrage to some
impatient spirits, who were for a brusque declaration of the liberty of the
Press. Two men, however, who enjoy the full confidence of the party of pro-
gress. Professor Orioli and M. d'Azeglio, have taken up the defence of the
edict of censorship, and shown what kindness there is in a measure which
tolerates the discussion of all matters of public administration, where the
mutual control of five persons is substituted for the arbitrary censorship of one,
and which points out the cases where publication maybe stopped, so that out-
side these special cases the censorship cannot interfere with a writer. Opinion
is accordingly beginning to veer round towards the measure, and to under-
stand that it enters perfectly into the policy of Pius IX., a policy of reforma-
tion always, but never of revolution.

" Thus it is that he has dismissed no one, but has profited by the death of
several magistrates to suppress their places. . . . Thus again it is that,
instead of suppressing some religious orders, which were useless but not
scandalous, he forbade them to receive novices. . . .

" Traits like these testify to the wisdom of a Sovereign who is as benign as
he is wise. I could cite you plenty of others which prove him to be a holy
prelate, a zealous priest, a saint in fact. . . .

" He has resumed, one by one, all the active functions of the episcopacy —
preaching, giving confirmation, visiting, incognito, schools and hospitals, and
the poor in their garrets, going to say Mass in any obscure chapel, and dis-
tributing Communion to all who are present, as my wife and I had the happi-
ness of receiving it from him. And, with all this, a purity of life that was the
admiration of those who knew him as a young priest, and a charity so bound-
less that when he set out to come to the Conclave he was obliged to borrow
six hundred crowns for his journey. . . . But what strikes one above
everything else in him are those two sentiments that have made the greatness
of all great Popes — an immovable faith in the Divine authority vested in him,
and a profound conviction of his unworthiness ; a trust in God that enables
him to undertake everything, and a contempt for himself that enables him to
suffer everything ; hence the aureole of sanctity which illuminates his counte-
nance, and that burning accent which pervades his discourse.

"We had the honor of being received in a private audience. His Holiness
made my wife sit down, and caressed and blessed my little daughter of
eighteen months. He spoke to us of France, of the youth of our schools, of

1 98 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanatn.

the duties of professorship, with a nobih'ty, an emotion, and a charm that are
indescribable. When I said that the deserved popularity of his name would
hasten the return of public feeling towards Catholicism, ' I know,' he replied,
' that God has worked that miracle, and that prejudice against the Holy See
has suddenly given way to respect and love ; but what utterly confounds me
is that He should have made use of a wretch like me to effect this change.'

"... I must tell you, since in your quality of father you will under-
stand my pride, that our little Marie behaved herself like a little angel. See-
ing her mother and me kneel down before the Pope, she knelt dow n too of
her own accord, clasped her small hands with an air of veneration ; and the
Holy Father was so delighted that three or four days afterwards he conde-
scended to allude to it in speaking about us to a French priest : ' They brought
me their little child, who was quite charming; the dear little thing went down
on her knees, and looked up at me as if I were the good God I '

"And don't you think she was right, my little Marie ? and that she recog-
nized truly the representative of Him who said, ' Suffer the little ones to come
unto Me ' .' "

Immediately after Easter Ozanam started off alone to
Monte Cassino to make some researches in the fine library of
the monks. The hurried expedition, the strain of the long
day spent deciphering and copying from the old parch-
ments, together with the intense cold of the monastery,
brought on a return of the feverish attack he had suffered
from at Florence.

"I started off by diligence from Naples, and returned in the same way,
passing two nights on the road, and only thirty-six hours at the Abbey," he
writes to his brother on the 29th of April. " If I had been enticed there solely
by a passion for art, I should certainly have been cruelly disappointed. In a
place which one expects to find full of the traces of Christian antiquity, you
find only a church of the eighteenth century, rich in marbles and gilding, but
without a single painting or statue of any value. Fortunately I was able to
communicate at the tomb of St. Benedict, and I came upon all the Benedic-
tine traditions in the admirable library of the Abbey, and amongst the learned
monks, who did me the honors of it. Thev showed me some precious manu-
scripts, from which I made extracts ; this will not be the least valuable part of
my literary booty. But these good monks, who know so many things, don't
know how to warm themselves, and I nearly died of cold in their fine archives,
and came away with an uncomfortable feeling, which ended in an attack of
fever when I got to Rome. Happily it only lasted a day, and allowed me to
go in a tolerably fit state to the audience which the Sovereign Pontiff kindly
granted me on the Monday evening. I had to thank him for the support
which he condescended to lend me in my researches, and I wished to offer him
my book, and also to present to him some letters for the Society of St. Vincent

Life and Works of Frederic Oz.inain. igg

de Paul. It was nine o'clock when I was admilted, and the Pope seemed very
tired with the business he had been getting through with his minister and
several public functionaries. His Holiness, nevertheless, received me with a
cordiality that touched me deeply ; he enquired after my health, that of my
wife, and my little girl, in a tone of the most charming friendliness and famili-
arity. Seeing him so kind towards me and mine, I ventured to speak to him
of my brothers, of the one who is a priest, and I asked for his blessing on
both."

One last delight was in reserve for the travellers.

On the 2ist of April Rome celebrated the 2600th year of
her foundation. The people solemnized it by an immense
national banquet ; tables were laid above tlie Thermae of Titus
for eight hundred guests, while two thousand persons were in-
vited to be present, seated in the surrounding space, which
was ornamented with fl:\gs, mottoes, and flowers. The dinner
was only a pretext, for, as Ozanam remarks, " the handful of
dishes served would not have frightened the sobriety of Curius
and Cato." The real motive of the gathering was the speeches,
the harangues, and patriotic songs, with whith the precincts
resounded loud and long. Many eminent men were present,
amougst them Orioli, the famous Professor, and Manzoni's
son-in-law, the Marquis d'Azeglio. The morning after this
merry-making a piece of important news was circulated
through Rome. The Pope had decreed, in a circular from
Cardinal Gizzi, that each province should send in the names
of three notable citizens, amongst which the Government
would choose one who should permanently represent the pro-
vince, and furnish such information as was needed towards
the accomplishment of certain reforms in its municipal insti-
tutions. The population was electrified by the news, and
Ozanam shall describe the way in which their enthusiasm ex-
pressed itself:

"We knew nothing of this event, which was filling the whole city, and we
were bitterly regretting the only thing that was wanted to complete the de-
light of our visit, namely, that we had not witnessed one of those striking
popular ovations of which we had heard so often. Amelie, too. was inconso-
lable at having to leave without seeing the Pope once more, and carr>ipg away
a parting blessing. We had hoped that during the evening we might have

200 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

met him out walking, as it had happened to us before, but this hope, like so
many others, was disappointed. We were just coming into the house when we
were informed that the people were getting ready to thank the Pope for his
new edict, and that there would be a beautiful/e/^; a ux flambeaux. We swal-
lowed our dinner as quickly as possible, and then, with the Abbe Gerbet and
a few friends, who had come to say good-by lo us, we hurried to the Corso.
The rendezvous was at the Piazza del Popolo. Torches were being distributed,
and those who took them ranged themselves ten abreast, with a leader of the
file. But the crowd was so great that we could only get a little above the
Church of St. Charles. There we were able to see the outset of the triumphal
march. It opened by lines of men with lighted torches ; then came the circu-
lar of Cardinal Gizzi printed on white linen, and carried aloft like a large
banner ; then a band of military music ; then a dense column of men holding
torches, to the number, it is estimated, of about six thousand. Nothing is
more striking than the order which reigned in the impromptu army, and no-
thing was more touching than to see walking side by side, in the same ranks,
men of the highest classes, workmen in blouses, priests in their soutane, many
of them with white hair, and all united in the same feeling, expressed in the
same cry, Viva Fio Nono ! Viva Gizzi! This is the first time I ever heard
vivats addressed to a minister.

" As the cortege advanced to the Corso, the houses were illuminated on the
road. At every story one saw the windows opening and people bending for-
ward with lamps ; frequently there were lanterns, colored glasses, flags with
mottoes, and thundering cheers were interchanged by the street and the win-
dows. . . , After following the crowd to the Piazza Colonna we rushed off by
the adjacent streets, in order to reach more quickly the Piazza of Monte Cavallo,
whither it was advancing. The Piazza was already filled with people. We
were so fortunate as to meet with some persons in a carriage, who invited
Amelie to get into it. I stood on the step, and we were thus enabled to take
in the whole scene. Presently we beheld the torch-bearers approaching ; the
closely packed crowd opened to make way for them, and allowed them to form
themselves into a square in front of the Papal palace. In the centre of the
square was the edict hoisted like a banner, and the music. A few pieces were
played, and then there arose a great shout ; lights were seen passing behind
the windows of the palace ; they advanced slowly to the window of the bal-
cony, which opened, and the Sovereign Pontiff came forward, accompanied
by two prelates and a few servants with torches. He appeared much moved
by the gratitude that was being shown to him, and bowed to the right and left
with his habitual grace. The liveliest acclamations answered him on every
side ; women waved their kerchiefs and men their hats ; there was clapping of
hands, and never-ending cries of Viva Pio Noiio! It was not the watchword
of a hackneyed official ovation ; they knew well that they must ask that he
may live, and that the highest interests of Italy and the world are bound up
in his life. But what touched me most of all was this : The Pope made a
sign, and suddenly you heard the word zitto (hush) ! On every side, and in
less than a minute, the most profound silence had fallen on the excited multi-
tude. You could hear distinctly the voice of the Pontiff raised to bless his

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanain. 2 o i

people, and when he stretched forth his hand, and, making the sign of the
cross, pronounced the solemn words, one mighty Amen! responded from end
to end of the vast piazza. There is no grander spectacle on earth than that
of a whole city thus praying with its Pontiff in the deep night-time, under the
starlight of a heavenly sky. And what shows that the spectators all felt it to
be a religious rite, the moment the Pope withdrew from the balcony the
torches were extinguished, and the scene was only lighted by the stray urns
of blue light from the terraces of the neighboring palaces.

" The idea evidently did not occur to anybody to continue the pleasure of
the promenade by torchhght, any more than it occurred to them, amidst so
many other cries, to utter one against Austria, Cardinal Lambruschini, or
againit any of the partisans of the late Government ; nothing that displayed
hatred or animosity, nothing but respect alone. Nor was there in this im-
mense crowd, with carriages and horses in everj' direction, the slightest dis-
order, not a single booby who thought fit to raise a panic to terrify the women
and children, as they are so fond of doing in Paris ; I might have left my
little Marie and her nurse walk about in the midst of it, such are the gentle-
ness, dignity, and even obligingness of the people here. We left the Piazza
of the Quirinal with the last lingering groups at half-past nine, and found the
streets on our way home silent and deserted as at midnight. The Romans
had lain down to sleep like so many good children who before going to bed
come and say good -night to their father."

But Ozanam could not think of sleep ; he was too excit-
ed by the spectacle he had beheld, and by the novel and
wonderful prospect which it opened out in the future. He
lingered for some time at the foot of the obelisk in the
centre of the piazza, plunged in a deep and happy medita-
tion. What he had just witnessed appeared to him, no doubt,
as nothing less than the end of the strife, the solution of the
problem which had been distracting Europe for more than
fifty years. For over half a century Christendom had been
invoking liberty, seeking and demanding it as a sacred and
imperative right, and resolved to conquer it at any price.
But there were those who told her she could only do this on
condition of renouncing Christianity, that the two were in-
compatible; and they bade her choose, but she could not
choose, for both were essential to her. Society rebelled
against this creed of incompatibility, and swore to prove it
false ; hence the rending that had torn it so long, while it ex-
hausted itself in the passionate effort of reconciliation. And

202 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

lo! to-night, this very hour, here, under the starUt sky of the
city of the Caesars, the reconcihation had taken place ; the
old antagonism had been destroyed, and the problem solv-
ed : the Vicar of Christ, the Pontiff and Prince of Christen-
dom, had taken Liberty by the hand, and signed a solemn
covenant with her.

Judging by the light of subsequent events, and of the pre-
sent, we cannot repress a smile as we watch Ozanam brooding
in silent exultation over his victorious ideal. We are often at
a loss to understand the mixture of sound philosophy, shrewd
sense, and Utopian chimera that flourish side by side in the
minds of men of genius. Ozanam presents one of those in-
teresting phenomena. But while considering the paradoxes
which he cherishes so complacently, and so devoutly believes
in, we must not lose sight of the fact that he was in reality
more an inhabitant of the past than of the present He lived
in the middle ages ; it was from them that he took his idea of
democracy, from those republics which, in their most turbu-
lent periods, were always under strong religious control, and
whose democracy was as different from the anti- Christian
and pantheistic democracy of the present age as the wild
follies of the crusading armies were from the hideous license
of the incendiaries of the Commune. He lost sight, moreover,
of the fact that the republics of the middle ages were so but
in name, being oligarchies in reality; the people talked loud
about their independence, but they meekly accepted the rule
of a few leaders. It is only on this condition, through the
unity engendered amongst the multitude by the influence of
one governing mind and will, that democracy can be main-
tained in its most modified form. No State can be secure or
stable that is not cemented by this unity. Happily for the
peace of the world, mankind knows this, and instinctively acts
upon it; men are gregarious, and must have a leader, who is
king for the time being, by whatever name he may be called.

Ozanam's idea was that religion would constitute this co-
hesive element in the State, that the Church would create the

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 203

bond of unity which would enable society to govern itself.
He was a confirmed optimist in his estimate of the goodness
and governableness of mankind in general, and French man-
kind in particular; we see this in his frequent and tender
apologies for " the poor devils who are beguiled to the barri-
cades, but who are Christians at heart, and ready to melt at a
word of kindness." Such a republican carries his ideal repub-
lic in his head, losing sight of the one that will really result
from an attempt to realize his ideal — a republic of violence,
bloodshed, and disorder, over which he and his views will
have no influence, a thing going from one excess to another,
led, or lured, or driven by the most wicked men, who are al-
ways the foremost and most aggressive, until finally it is
crushed by some new despotism in arms. Ozanam, like
other men of genius, was so satisfied with the theoretical per-
fection of his ideal that he was blind to the presence of un-
derlying elements, which would work out to results the very
opposite of those he looked for. He was quite right in as-
serting that he was no pohtician in the practical sense of the
word ; his theories were indeed lofty and beautiful, but, ex-
cept as ai)plied to social questions, they were absolutely in-
applicable to the Europe of the nineteenth century.

He applauded the policy of Pius IX. the more enthusias-
tically that he fancied he saw in it the realization of his own
political creed. He was a republican, not only because he
held a republic to be the best form of government, but be-
cause he believed it was that to which all nations were gradu-
ally, some unconsciously, others reluctantly, but all inevita-
bly, tending. He saw the day fast approaching when the
people would be the ruling power in every State ; it was es-
sential, therefore, if the world was to be well governed that
the people should be Christianized ; otherwise they would de-
stroy and subvert all authority. Democracy appeared to him
like the rising tide which no power on earth can stay, can
bid " Thus far and no farther '"; it depended on the present
rulers of Europe — kings, statesmen, and politicians — whether

204 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

it was to be a wave that would peacefully float society over
that crisis which is inevitable in every transition from an old
order of things to a new, or whether it was to be a destroying
torrent that would sweep all before it in ruin and desolation.
Rome was now threatened by this rising tide, and though
Ozanam distincdy recognized the fact, he did not discern at
this moment how deeply the waters were poisoned at their
source. On one hand, Russia, with the schism of the Greek
Church and the encroaching policy of the Czars, marching
steadily on to Constantinople, to the possession of eastern
Europe, was a perpetual menace. Austria, on the other
hand, was a hostile force which had been jealously working
against the Pontiff from the moment of his election ; his
grand scheme of reform and his erect attitude of independence
alarmed and offended the Cabinet of Vienna, and it lay in
wait to seize any pretext that miglit present itself for creating
a disturbance in the Papal territory, for aiding and abetting
the slightest show of disaffection amongst the people. The
secret societies were spread like a net all over the country,
breathing hatred to Christianity and all that represented it ;
the Pope, who was emancipating his people from the oppres-
sive and retrograde system that had weighed on them so
long, admitting laymen to office, proclaiming the ConsuUa,
reforming every department of the State, and this without vio-
lence or any irritating coercive measures — the Pope was rep-
resented as their worst enemy, the enemy of all progress and
liberty, the secret canker of Italy, which would never be free
until she was delivered from him. Then there was the in-
tense desire to drive the Russians out, which complicated
everything; the Father of Christendom could not make war
on them, for " they too were his children."

Pius IX. saw all these things, but without alarm or mis-
trust. He loved his people and his country more sincerely,
and far more wisely, than any of the " patriots " who were
accusing him, than any Mazzini who sought to serve both by
the dastardly weapons of assassination and calumny; he s^w

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 205

the evils that existed and those that threatened, but he saw
them with the undaunted courage of a man who seeks his in-
spirations higher than in the counsels of this world. Ozan-
am Hved to see the failure of the Pontiff's noble and generous
efforts, but he never lost faith in their essential rightness and
ultimate success; he did not join with those who turned on
freedom and cursed it as a viper whose first use of its restor-
ed vitality is to sting the breast that cherished it; he held
firm in his belief that Pius IX. had done well in holding out
his hand to Liberty, and embracing her as the natural and
powerful helpmate of religion. The result shocked and pained
but did not bewilder him or throw him into despair. Even in
those sanguine days of the young pontificate he was prepared
for evil times following. He said at a public meeting on his
return from Rome :

" I believe firmly the future has serious troubles in store for Pius IX. ; I be-
lieve it for his greater glor)'. God does not raise up such men for ordinary
difficulties. If this great Pontiff had only to cope with the over-enthusiasm,
the eagerness of his people — a thing that so few princes have to complain of —
his mission would be an easy one ; it would fill too small a place in history ;
his bark would glide over tranquil waters. We must look out for the tempest.
But let us not fear, like the disciples of little faith : Christ is in the boat, and
He is not sleeping ; never has He been more wakeful than in these present
days."

But with all his desire to hold the balance even, the scales
dipped sensibly to the side of hope, of jubilant expecta-
tion.

" The first, the strongest, the sweetest of my hopes rests on the Pope him-
self," he says. " When God wishes to bring forth great events in the Chris-
tian world, He begins by sowing the seed of saints there. A few years ago a
preacher who has the gift of inspired lang^uage was evangelizing the youth of
France from the pulpit of Notre Dame ; casting a sorrowful glance over
modem Europe, he cried out, ' O God, give us saints ! it is long since we
have seen any !' Let us rejoice ; Heaven has granted more than we asked.
It has seated on the chair of St. Peter a saint such as the world has not seen
since the pontificate of Pius \'. . . . This sanctity, which illuminates his
countenance, permeates his life and all his actions, and as it is the best part
of his authority, so it is the principle of all his reforms. People were greatly
jnistaken as to the intentions of Pius IX. Some took him for a weak sover^

2o6 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

eign, conquered by popularity ; others for a clever politician, gained over to
the opinions of his age. But he himself, pouring out his heart to a friend,
confessed that in proclaiming the amnesty he had thought only of all the
hearts, led astray by political hatred, whom this free pardon might win back
to God. And they proved he was not mistaken when, a few weeks afterwards,
a great number of the subjects of the amnesty assembled at the basilica of St.
Peter's Chains, and went to Communion together, as if to publicly proclaim
their return to a religion of clemency. So it was with the institution of the
Civic Guard, which astonished and alarmed half the Cabinets of Europe, but
which, in the intention of the Pope, was nothing but an energetic measure
against idleness, that is to say, against the chief moral plague of Italy. In
placing under arms the immense crowd of idlers that encumber the towns and
the country districts, in subjecting them to the fatigue of military exercises
and discipline, he not only snatched them from the temptations of idleness^
he formed them to work. People fancied he was raising soldiers for himself,
while he was solely bent on forming citizens. ..."

The Consulta, the decree, the provoked, the magnificent
popular ovation which Ozanam describes on the eve of his
leaving Rome, was in itself a giant stride in the road of re-
form. Three deputies from every town did not constitute a
Parliament, but they made the beginning of onej and those
who were wise looked on approvingly at the sagacious slow-
ness of the Sovereign Pontiff in thus patiently building up the
edifice of reform step by step, instead of rushing precipitately
into full-grown institutions, as the more impatient radicals
wished him to do. Neighboring nations looked with amaze-
ment at these liberal proceedings, and, remembering the feats
of the Commune of Paris, argued that the Pope would soon
regret his concessions. But history was there to show a pre-
cedent in his favor. The Cotisulta had roots in the past, and
closely resembled a consulting legislative body composed of
ecclesiastics, founded four centuries before by Nicholas V.,
but which Pius IX. now revived under secular conditions
adapted to the needs of the age. The Roman population so
far amply vindicated his confidence in them. It was a noble
spectacle to behold them leaping at one bound into freedom
without violence or disorder, without the slightest offence
against moderation, gentleness, or sobriety. Ozanam, who
considered it with the eyes of a poet and the heart of a

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 207

Christian philosopher, saw in " this revolution with flowers
and poetry," as he termed it, the assured triumph of his own
Utopian dreams. Europe beyond the Alps, accustomed to
revolutions of a different order, and achieved with different
weapons, looked on in undisguised astonishment at a people
inaugurating their hberty, not witli barricades and gunpowder,
but with flowery noonday fes/as and torchlight processions.
But in a country where poetry is the spontaneous language of
popular emotion, how could it be absent from the dawn of the
national freedom ?

" Let us not despise those populations who march forth to liberty through
streets garlanded with flowers and festooned with flags, flaming with lights,
resounding with choirs of music and hymns," cries Ozanam. " Let us not
shrug our shoulders like men who believe only in the power of the sword.
We must hope great things from a people who can thus adorn the first hours
of their emancipation ; who are content with little ; who are neither biases
nor tired of life ; whose men do not murder one another through vanity or
through idleness ; a people vi-ho have small experience, but a vast amount of
enthusiasm, and who hold firmly to faith, which is the true principle of order,
and to love, which is the true principle of liberty."

Ozanam was convinced that the moral strength of a nation
may be tested by the amount of liberty it is capable of bear-
ing without prejudice to order. A hunger for freedom he
held to be a sign of national health ; thus it followed that
where others saw only revolutionary instincts which it was the
duty of authority to crush, he recognized salutary inspirations,
which it behoved the legislator to enlighten and direct. The
philosophy of history, as he interpreted it, had led him to be-
lieve that there is no real meaning or character in the move-
ment of human society unless through all its changes and
convulsions we can discern a steady and continued progress
through Christianity to the dignity of freeflom. This condition
of freedom, which he held so essential to the welfare and
happiness of communities, he considered equally indispensable
to the Church. He was consequently intolerant of the least
bondage for her, and impatient that a Christian people should
tolerate it, when at the same time they were perhaps fighting

2o8 Llfd and Works of Fredtiic Czaiiam.

manfully for the emancipation of their country. If the Church
were free, free in the fullest sense of the word — free to guide,
to rule, and to teach mankind — then all legitimate freedom
would follow.

Immediately after Holy Week Ozanam and his wife left
Rome, and began a little tour through Italy homewards.
Tiiey visited all the shrines that lay within their reach, Sienna,
Bologna, Padua, etc., and beheld everywhere the footprints
of genius following closely on the track of sanctity. " It seems,"
remarks Ozanam, '' as if it sufficed to bury a saint somewhere
for all the arts to flower out in that spot." But of all the
sanctuaries which they visited, none delighted them so much
as that of Assisi, all fragrant as it is with the memory of St.
Clare and St. Francis — sweet St. Francis, who made such
friends with the doves and the wild beasts.

They arrived at Venice late in May, and nothing that
Ozanam had yet seen in this land of wonders and of beauty
had prepared him for the surprise which here awaited him.
Night was falling, and the long canal by which they entered
the city was lighted only by a few stars overhead and the
beacons of the gondolas that shot past each other silent and
dark in their black draperies, like phantoms gliding over the
water. As they advanced, palaces rose on every side, until
the gondola turned off into the little canal that conducted
them to their hotel. After a hasty refreshment they sallied
forth to see the city as far as it could be seen by night. They
went at once to the Piazza; it was flooded with light, which
magnified its size to immensity.

Ozanam says he did not see this ; he dreamt it, and ex-
pected to find the dream vanish when he awoke at day-
break.

" It was ten o'clock ; music was playing on every side ; groups of young men
and maidens stopped beneath the porticoes to listen. 1 began to realize all the
subtle danger that lurked in this enchanted life of ancient Venice, all that
made the charm of that magic city, and all that had wrought her ruin. . . .
The dream returned for ten mornings. I have now seen the sun rise ten
times over Venice, and each time 1 have found that my dream has not

Life and IVorks of Frederic Czanam. 209

vanished. Venice has performed far more than she promised. No church of
Italy, not that of Pisa, whose fine colonnades I so loved, nor that of Orvieto,
with its paintings and bas-reliefs, nor the dome of St. Vital of Ravenna, nor
the mosaics of St. Apollinarius, of Sta. Maria Maggiore, and the Cathedral of
Monti eal, no religious monument so far has struck me as so instructive as St.
Mark, which combines the style of the Eait and of the West, and whose mo-
saics contain the whole history of Christendom, while the inscriptions that
cover its walls are in themselves a grand religious poem."

Time fled swiftly in the magic city, where life seemed a
dream, gliding in gondolas over the lagaons, or musing by
moonlight on the shores of Lido, listening to the waves of the
Adriatic as they sang their lullaby to the stars. There were
little pilgrimages, too, to adjacent shrines, monasteries, and
temples, fragments of a glory and a prosperity once famous
as that of Venice herself; monks still haunted them, and kept
guard over that sacred deposit of the past which had survived
decay — books, unique manuscripts, statues, pictures, frescos.
All this was placed freely at the disposal of Ozanam. But
his enjoyment in Venice was not without alloy.

" I saw in one of the halls of the palace," he says, " the allegorical figures
of Veronese representing with pompous devices all that ever made the power
of Venice : Faith, nunquam derelicta ; Justice and Strength, fundamentuiK
reipubh'cct, custodes libertatis ; the Na\"\', robur imperii ; and that liberty was
badly guarded, and that empire badly upheld. In the great council-haU were
ranged the portraits of the Doges, and, after the last, there is a vacant space
for those that were to follow. On the piazza are the three masts, stripped of
the banners of the three kingdoms that once made the glor}- of the Republic,
and on the piazzetta the Austrian cannons and Hungarian grenadiers are
giiarding them "

The travellers returned home early in July, passing through
Switzerland and Belgium, Ozanam's health was to all ap-
pearance restored, and he was impatient for the re-opening
of his cours at the termination of the holidavs.

CHAPTER XX,

1847.

We shall have occasion to speak of Ozanam's chief works
collectively, but meanwhile we cannoc forbear from making
special mention here of that one which was the immediate
fruit of this journey to Italy. Les Poetes Framiscains was pro-
nounced by several contemporary critics " a pearl without a
rival." It is a book that has all the fascination of a poem
combined with the reality of history; for in dealing with facts
the author allows himself no poetic license. Ozanam, wan-
dering through the gay meadows and shadowy towns of
Umbria, thrust his hand, as he says, " into the nest whence
the eagles of Christian poetry were destined to take flight —
Dante, Petrarch, and Tasso."

He traces the poetic ancestry of these eagles to the humble
Franciscan friars. But before beginning his researches in the
dim twilight of mediaeval cloisters he descends into the gloom
of the catacombs, and patiently explores their testimony ;
here every broken slab, every fragment of tomb and altar-stone,
is a witness, speaking with authority, though often vaguely, in
the obscure language of symbolism and allegory.

Following our guide through the intricate mazes of the gal-
leries, lined with tombs and shrines, we reach the point where
this "mural poetry " ceases; the poetic idea breaks forth in
the true poetic utterance of verse, and henceforth speaks no
other. Soon we hear the poet Prudentius celebrating the
catacombs and their martyrs in the metre of Virgil and
Horace. Presently a new school of poetry, with a new civi-
lization, is about to emerge from these consecrated vaults
which are undermining Rome :

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 211

■' While the walls of the Eternal City are shaken by the battering-rams, and
the Goths and Vandals enter by the breach ; while the barbarian hordes are
sacking it, carrying off even to the leaden roofs of the houses and the brazen
gates ; at the very moment when all seems lost, the sacred sepulchres of the
catacombs are upheaving through the soil, and produce those admirable
basilicas of St. Paul, Sta. Maria Maggiore, and so many others, which, from
the fourth to the thirteenth century, are a refuge, a shelter, and a protection
for all the arts."

They find another refuge in the popular sympathies ; the
hymns of St. Gregory and St. Ambrose are on the Hps of the
people, whose simple idiom was the destined vehicle of the
poetic current which broke upwards from the catacombs.

" The fable tells us," says Ozanam, in one of those happy images that were
familiar to him, " that Mercury, when a child, was playing one day by the
sea-shore, and, picking up a tortoise-shell from amongst the pebbles on the
beach, he began to play upon it, and thus invented the first lyre. So, like-
wise, the genius of Italy picked up from the dust at her feet the humble idiom
which was destined to be her immortal instrument."

What charms him above all in this genius is that in becom-
ing erudite and classical it does not cease to remain popular;
each age of literature has its poetry of the people. It is this
rich and delicate undergrowth that Ozanam purposes specially
to explore. He does so conscientiously, leading us on to the
thirteenth century, when the poet of Assisi arose, and, taking
up the rustic instrument, breathed into it his wondrous inspi-
rations, improvising for the people in their own familiar idiom
that incomparable canticle to " our brother, my lord the Sun,"
which marks a new era in Italian literature.

We know the story of the poet's early life; how he came to
be called Francis, from his father's predilection for France,
where he was travelling with his merchandise when the child
was born ; how the little Francis inherited his father's fond-
ness for the country of the troubadours, whose language was
the first his baby tongue was taught to lisp. It was the
poetry of France that taught him the first notions of romance
and chivalry. He learned there that there were two kinds of
chivalry, one ferriefine^ or earthly, one Ci'lestielle, or heavenly.

212 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanani.

The knights of the celestielle sought glory and adventure,, but
in no earthly cause. Their example fired the ambition of
Francis. At the age of twenty, being reputed the handsom-
est cavalier of Assisi, " the flower of its youth," he joined the
Crusaders, and went forth to fight the infidel at Damietta;
and having thus won his spurs in the ranks of the nobler
knighthood, he sheathed his sword and returned to his native
land, where the lady of his love awaited him. She was a
mistress of cold and austere mien, beautiful in his eyes alone;
but lie loved her, and gave up all things for her sake. He
served her with a life-long devotion, and sang to her in accents
whose Divine beauty rises far beyond the reach of earthly
passion and the inspiration of mere human art. Listen to his
canticle to my Ladye Poverty and her crucified Spouse :

"Lord! have Thou pity upon me, and upon my Ladye Poverty! And
behold her seated on a dunghill ; she, who is the queen of virtues, she com-
plains because her friends have spurned her, and have become her enemies.
. . . Remember, Lord, that Thou didst come down from the abode of the
angels, in order to take her for Thy spouse, and to make her the mother of a
great multitude of sons who should be perfect. ... It was she who received
Thee in the stable and in the manger, and who, keeping company with Thee
all through life, took care that Thou hadst not whereon to lay Thy head.
When Thou didst begin the war of our redemption, Poverty attached herself
to Thee like a faithful squire. She stood by Thy side during the combat ;
she did not forsake Thee when Thy disciples fled.

"When at last Thy mother, who followed Thee to the end, and took her
share of all Thy sorrows — when even Thy mother could no longer reach to
Thee, because of the height of the Cross, my Ladye Poverty embraced Thee
more closely than ever. She would not have Thy Cross carefully fashioned,
nor the nails in sufficient number, and pointed and smooth, but prepared only
three, which she made blunt and rough, that they might better serve the pur-
pose of Thy torture. Whilst Thou wert dying of thirst she refused Thee a
little water, so that Thou didst expire clasped Jn the embrace of this Thy
spouse.

"Oh! who then would not love my Ladye Poverty above all other
things ? "

The instinct of Catholicism alone can furnish the key to
this Divine philosophy. Each age has its prevailing vice as
well as its apparent beauty. The love of riches, the passion
for gain, was the disease of the age of Francis, and he was

Life and IV. >rks of Frederic Ozanam. 213

raised up to testify against these evils, and recruit an army
who would wage war on avarice, and restore to her throne
" the queen of the virtues, who was seated on a dunghill."

This lover of poverty was an ardent lover of nature. When
he claimetl kindred witii the stars and the flowers, with the
sun and the moon, he gave utterance to his strongest human
sympathies. In the merry days of his cavalier life he had
filled the starlit streets of Assisi with the gay ditties and soft
ballads of his native land; after his conversion he awoke the
echoes of the woods with the music of hymns and canticles.
In his most ascetic days this predilection for music was never
abandoned or condemned. At eventide the trilling of the
nightingale would move him to respond in an outburst of
melodious song, and the two would keep it up far into the
night, until Francis, exhausted in the duet, would praise his
conqueror for being so indefatigable in the praises of their
common Lord, and retire, leaving him master of the silence.
Once, when worn out with suffering in his last illness, he
longed for a little music to " wake up joy in his soul," but the
ascetic rule that he had adopted did not admit of this re-
laxation; the angels, however, heard his heart's desire, and
the same night, as he lay in meditation on his couch of pain,
a marvellous harmony, as of a flute of unearthly sweetness,
filled the air. No musician was vi:3ible, but the sounds floated
to and fro as of some one passing beneath the window.
Francis, entranced by the music, thought for a moment that
he had passed into the heavenly spheres.

He encouraged the love of music and song amongst the
people, and taught them his own sweet poetry. His hymn to
" Our brother, my lord the Sun," became, in course of time,
the most popular in the land, and resounded far and wide,
from dawn to sundown, through the valleys of Umbria.
Children lisped it at their play, women sang it over their
household work, old men murmured it at their cottage-doors,
until the sweet strophes rose and fell through the sunny woods
and vineyards, unceasing and spontaneous like the chirpings

2 14 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

of our brothers the httle birds ; " for," as Ozanam remarks,
" these Itahans, who can go without clothes or food, cannot
do without song and poetry." Though the canticle is so well
known, we will give an imperfect translation of it here for the
few who may not be acquainted with it :

"Most high, most powerful and kind Lord, to whom belong all praise,
glory, and benediction ! They are due to Thee alone, because of all creatures,
and chiefly for our brother, my lord the sun, who giveth us the day and the
light ! He is beautiful, and shines with a great splendor, and bears testimony
unto Thee, O my God !

" Praised be Thou, my Lord, for our sister the moon, and for the stars!
Thou hast formed them in the heavens, bright and fair.

" Praised be Thou, my Lord, for my brother the wind, for the air and the
clouds, for the calm and for all weathers ! for it is by this that Thou dost up-
hold all creatures.

" Praised be Thou, my Lord, for our sister the water, which is very useful,
liuinble, precious, and chaste 1

" Praised be Thou, my Lord, for our brother the fire ! By him Thou
dost illumine the darkness ; he is beautiful and pleasant to see, dauntless and
strong.

" Praised be my Lord for our mother the earth, which supports and
nourishes us, and brings forth fruits of divers sorts, the grass of the field and
the variegated flowers ! ''

One day there arose a grievous dispute between the magis-
trates of Assisi and the bishops. St. Francis hearing of it was
sorely distressed, and seeing that no one stood forth as a
peacemaker, he added the following strophe to his canticle :

" Praised be Thou, my Lord, because of those who forgive for Thy sake, and
for love of Thee patiently bear infirmity and tribulation ! Happy they who
persevere in peace ! for they shall be crowned by the Most High 1 '

He then desired his disciples to go boldly to the principal
notabilities of the town and beg of them to come at once to
the bishops, and when they should all be assembled there, to
sing in two choruses before the disputants the newly composed
verse. The disciples obeyed him, and immediately, when
they had ceased singing, the adversaries asked pardon one of
another, and embraced, with many tears.

Sweet St. Francis ! Gentle brother of the flowers and the
little birds ! He met a peasant one day driving two lambs

Life and Works of Frederic Ozana/n. 215

to the slaughter; it was mid-winter; the lover of poverty-
had only one cloak, but he took it off and offered it to
the peasant on condition that he would spare the life of the
lambs.

He cherished the wild doves in his breast, he tamed the
hungry wolf, he called the robins and the bullfinches to him,
and bade them sing away merrily the praises of .God ; then he
would bid them be silent while he and his brethren sang in
their turn ; they obeyed, and when the monks had recited the
breviary the birds burst out into chirpings again.

But the time had come for Francis to leave this world and
join in the songs of the blessed. Shortly before his death lie
fell into a gentle ecstasy, and, waking from it, composed a
last verse to his canticle; he expired while the brethren were
singing it :

" Praised be Thou, my Lord, because of our sister, the death of the body,
from which no man can escape ! Woe to those who die in mortal sin ! Happy
they who at the hour of death are conformed to Thy holy will ! For then the
second death cannot hurt them.

" Praise and bless my Lord, give Him thanks, and serve Him with great
humility."

The poetic mission of St. Francis, eclipsed during his life-
time by loftier and graver cares, only received its full recog-
nition in the century after his death. He chose for his grave
a hillside, east of Assisi ; it was the place where public
criminals were put to death, and was called the Hill of Hell.
Scarcely had his dust been laid in this unhallowed spot when
some mysterious attraction began to draw the minds and
hearts of men there, and moved, so to speak, the very earth
itself Gregory IX. placed the name of Francis among the
saints, and decreed that the place of his sepulchre should be
called the Hill of Paradise. Henceforth no honors were
great enough for the beggar bridegroom of my Ladye Poverty.
The nations vied with each other in bringing tributes of re-
spect to his grave. He, who had left all things and becotne
an outcast for God's sake, soon beheld a magnificent abode

2i6 Life and Works of Fredetk Ozaiiain.

rising over his resting-place, grander than any palace he had
dreamed of in the cavalier days of his youth. And, as if a
divine inspiration came from the resting-place of the artist
saint, those who drew near to adorn it wtire filled with a new
artistic sense; they discarded the old Byzantine types, grand
enough in their day, but now worn out and rapidly lapsing
into decrepitude, after eight hundred years' service. Thev
conceived a new and purer ideal, and thus made the sepulchre
of Francis the cradle of a retiaissance which was destined to
advance to the highest point of perfection. Here Guido of
Sienna and Giunta of Pisa broke loose from the trammels of
the old Greek masters, softening and vivifying their hard
immobility. Then came Cimabue, and after Cimabue,
Giotto.

•'A whole cortige of artists follow after Giotto," says Ozanam, "and vie
with each other in creating masterpieces to commemorate the sanctity of
Francis and feed the piety of the simple population of the mountains, who
daily come to say their prayers near his tomb."

The inspiration which evoked this new school of painting
and architecture sustained its first flights.

" If I have dwelt long on this renaissance of the arts, it is because I discern in
it the heralds of a great literary era. \\nien I see a people carrj'ing marble from
the quarry, piling it up in colonnades, in ogives, and in steeples, covering the
walls of its edifices with paintings and mosaics, not leavinga single corner with-
out its emblem or device — when I see this, I believe that a thought is germinat-
ing in that people, revealing itself in architectural symbolism, translating itself
more clearly in the outlines of drawing, and that it is on the eve oi finding in
language a more exact and harmonious expression. In the train of these great
artists who have passed in procession before us we shall see a young genera-
tion of poets coming down from the hill of Assisi."

Ozanam passes the poets in review, beginning with Frere
Pacifique, a deserter from the ranks of profane literature,
where his triumphs had been crowned by tlie emperor himself,
who placed on his head the ancient Roman laurel crown that
was to encircle the brow of Dante and Petrarcli.

After Brother Peaceful comes a poet of a far higher order,
St. Bonaventure, whom Gerson styles " the most excellent

Life and Works of Frederic Ozatiam. 217

master who ever appeared in the University of Paris." He
wrote that exquisite work which, Ozanam says, " only needs
the form of versification to be called a poem" — The Le-
gend of St. J'rancis. The ascetic theologian here gives full
play to the fountains of natural tenderness and poetry that are
in his heart. In his description of the death-scene of the
saint, there is one of those touches whose delicate grace be-
trays the instinct of the true poet : " The swallows, those
little birds that love the light and hate the darkness, although
the night was falling just as the holy man breathed his last
sigh, came in a great multitude and perched upon the roof of
the house, and remained there a long time, whirling about
joyously, as if to render a signal and loving testimony to the
blessed one who had so often invited them to sing the divine
praises."

Passing on to Jacopone da Todi, Ozanam enters, not with-
out some hesitation, as he admits, on the history of this extra-
ordinary man, who passed from the cloister to the prison, and
from the i)rison to the altar, to be venerated as a saint. But
painful as it is to him to describe a period when we see the
Church on fire, and a great religious at war with the Pope, it
is impossible, in a notice of the poets of the age, to pass by
the author of the Stabat.

Jacques dei Benedetti was in the flower of his youth, the
son of one of the richest men of Todi, an old cathedral town,
suspended from the hill that overlooks the meeting of the
Tiber and the Naga at the entrance of Umbria. He had
squandered his father's almost boundless wealth, but being
now a doctor of law, which in those days meant a person of
importance and power, Jacques determined to set to work
and repair the breach he had made in the paternal coffers.
He was more successful than scrupulous in the pursuit of his
object, and in a few years was richer than ever. To crown
his prosperity he married the loveliest maiden in his native
town, who brought him, in addition to her beauty, a splendid
dower,

2i8 Life and Works oj Frederic Ozanam.

It fell out that in the year 1268 Todi was celebrating the
public games. The beautiful young wife of the rich juriscon-
sult was there, sealed in a high place among the noblest
women of the town. Suddenly the gallery gave way ; the cries
of the unhappy women mingled with the crash of the falling
wood and the music of lutes and viols. Jacques rushed for-
ward, and seeing his wife among the victims, lifted her in his
arms to a place of safety, and proceeded quickly to relieve
her by opening her bodice, but with a blush she signified to
him to wait until they were alone. He carried her to a dis-
tance, and there opening the golden tissue of her festive ap-
parel, he discovered a hair-shiit. Before he could express his
sorrow and surprise she expired in his arms. The last lesson
of his beloved one was not lost on him. He guessed too
truly whose sins and follies the rude instrument of jjenance
was intended to expiate. What was there in her spotless life
to need such expiation ? Jacques sold all his goods and dis-
tributed them to the poor, and then, like one distraught, wan-
dared in and out of the churches dressed in rags. The people
nicknamed him Jacopone — mad Jacques! — and pelted him as
he passed, and mocked him. But Jacques took no heed of
them. Like Jeremiah, who appeared in the pubhc places of
Jerusalem with a yoke round his neck to typify her approaching
captivity, he showed himselt at a public festival half-naked,
crawling on his hands and teet, with saddle and bridle, like a
beast ot burden. The spectators grew pensive at the sight,
considering to what a miserable estate that once envied destiny
had fallen.

After ten years of this strangely heroic life, Jacopone knocked
at the door of the Franciscan monastery and asked to be ad-
mitted. The monks hesitated long, but at last recognizing
that his madness was akin to that of their own St. Francis,
they took him in. He entreated permission to retain his old
nickname as the one most suitable to him ; he refused the
honor of the priesthood, because of his unworthiness, and
entered as a lay brother, performing the most laborious and

Life and Works of Fre dene Ozaiiam. 219

servile offices of the monasteiy. At last he obtained such
complete mastery over his senses that it seemed as if he had
now reached the goal, and that the race was at an end. It
was here, on the contrary, that it in reality began.

When Pierre de Morrone was dragged from his Cenobite's
cell and crowned Pope under the tide of Celestine V., Jaco-
pone addressed him an episde in verse, in which he reminded
him of the terrible exchange he ha^i made in leaving the pious
contemplations of his cell for the government of Christendom,
and bade him remember that if he failed in his duty the curse
of Christendom would be upon him.

"I felt a great bitterness of pity for thee in my heart," he adds, "when there
came forth from thy mouth that word / 'will — that word which placed on thy
neck a yoke heavy enough to make one dread thy damnation. Bevare of in-
cumbents. . . . Beware of those who embezzle the public money ; if thou
canst nut defend thyself against them thou wilt sing a sorry song."

The Pope was so terrified by the picture Jacopone drew of
tlie perils of the Pontificate, the tempest of human passions
which he was called upon to control, that, overcome by
a sense of his own weakness and the magnitude of the task,
he fled back to his desert and could never be induced to re-
turn.

Benedict Gaetani was elected his successor, under the title
of Boniface VIII. Two cardinals, Giacomo and Pietro Co-
lon na, protested against the election, and drew up a deed
summoning him to appear at the bar of the approaching Uni-
versal Council. Jacopone had the evil fortune to figure in
this deed as a witness, and thus was included in the excom-
munication which fell upon the two rebellious cardinals. A
period of struggle, humiliation, and misery now began for the
ardent friar of Assisi, and only closed on the succession of
Benedict XI. to the Papal throne, when the interdict was
raised, and Jacopone, set free from his dungeon, went to end
his daj's in peaceful captivity with his brethren at Collazone.
Here, not long before his death, he composed that wonderful
hymn to the Mother of Sorrows, the Stabat Mater^ which

2 20 Life and Works of Frcdctic Czanani.

would alone have made his name immortal; but there are
many other fragments from the pen of the old athlete of pen-
ance which betray the quaint originality of his mind, as well
as his impetuous love of God and tender sympathy for his fel-
low-men.

Jacopone, who was greater than all his predecessors, was
to usher in the greatest of his successors. He was the herald
of Dante. The Divitia Commedia is like one of those vast
Roman basilicas which, not satisfied with admiring it within
and without, we are curious to explore to its very foundations.
" You descend by torchlight to the sacred vaults," says Oza-
nam, " and discover the entrance of a catacomb which dives
into the earth, dividing itself into many branches and spread-
ing over an immense area. If you go through it to the end
without losing your way or turning back, you come out at last
into the open country, a great way ofif from the place where
you entered."

All the lovers and commentators of Dante have indulged
in these explorations of the sources and antecedents of the
Divina Commedia, none more diligently, nor, we venture to
assert, more fruitfully, than Ozanam. He shows us the Fran-
ciscan poets, more especially Jacopone, as opening the way
to Dante by pointing out to him all that poetry might borrow
from theology, and how much sweetness and beauty, as well
as lofty wisdom, it might draw from the Divine metaphysics
of the faith — how inseparable, in fact, the highest kind of
beauty is from the highest truth. Jacopone proved also that
no mysteries of faith are too sublime, no speculations of phi-
losophy too subtle or too profound, to be adequately expressed
in the popular idiom. It was he who, more than any of his
brother poets, drew the attention of the world to the honeyed
tongue^ of his native land; and if the Divina Commedia,
instead of being written in the classical Latin of Virgil,
was confided to the soft bastard Latin of the Italian people,
the world owes it in a great measure to the mad penitent of
Todi.

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanatn. 221

Perhaps it was some feeling of gratitude for this unconscious
lesson, as much as for others l)etter understood, which induced
Dante to sing the praises of St. Francis in such jubilant ac-
cents, and to desire, after death, to be buried in the habit of
his order, and at the foot of his tomb; or was the Christian
poet prompted rather by the hope that he might find the
judgment of God more lenient if he presented himself at the
mercy-seat in the livery of the poor, and that " the thunder-
bolt, which would not spare the laurels of the poet, would
respect the badge of poverty " ?

It is said that the great Alighieri was personally acquainted
with Jacopone, and that when sent as ambassador to Philip le
Bel he recited to the king some of the Franciscan's verses,
where the latter stigmatizes the ])olicy of Boniface — a bold*
ness which excited such fierce resentment against the daring
satirist, who was destined to expiate it in years of captivity.
" Whether this be true or not, it is certain," remarks Ozanam,
" that when Dante stood forth to address, not a king, but that
mighty audience which centuries have gathered to him, he
found the minds of men prepared by him who preceded him
as a theological poet, as a popular poet, and as a satirist. . . ."

Ozanam passes on from the poems of Jacopone to \\\t Little
Flowers of St. Francis, a collection of legends written in prose,
but breathing in every page the music of true poetry, and
fragrant from the minds of St. Francis and his early disciples.
They are anonymous, " it being the effort of mysticism to be
forgotten of men before God," remarks the gleaner who pre-
sents them to us ; and he adds, " Here I pass the pen to a
hand more delicate than mine." Whilst he was plunged in
the arid researches of the archives, this hand " more delicate
than his " was culling the fragrant little flowers that grew in
lowly spots along their road, and forming them into a bouquet
whose perfume refreshed him in many an hour of weariness
and pain. Perhaps the fact of their being translated by her
whom he styled his Beatrice may have added another charm
to those exquisite idyls in Ozanam's eyes, and account in a

222 Life and Works of Frederic Ozatuim.

measure for the fascination which they possessed for him to
the last. Less partial critics are, however, agreed that the
Little Flowers are rendered in French with a freshness, a
tia'ivet^, and a dehcacy of touch scarcely surpassed in the
original. It would carry us beyond our limits to enter on an
analysis of the Fioretti, but we hope those of our readers who
have not already seen this gem-like work will lose no time in
making acquaintance with it; with the legend of the Wolf of
Gubbio, that beautiful symbol of the Church purifying and
disarming the bloody hand of the feudal power which weighed
so cruelly on the people of the middle ages; with the banquet
of St. Clare and Francis, and other scenes of their mystic and
tender intercourse ; witli tlie docile little fishes who swam up
to the sea shore and listened, glistening on the silvery wave,
while St. Anthony preached to them the mercies and the
alories of God.

CHAPTER XXI.

In the autumn of 1847 Ozanam resumed his class at the
Sorbonne with renewed zest and health almost completely
restored. His lioliday had not been a period of idleness, and
he was comparatively satisfied with the result as regarded
the work done. Writing to M. Foisset on this subject, he
says :

" My two essays on Dante and Les Gennains are for me like the two ex-
treme points of a work which has been carried on partly in my public lec-
tures, and which I should be glad to resume in order to complete it. It would
include the literary history of the barbarous ages ; the history of letters, and
consequently of civilization, since the Latin decline and the first commence-
ments of Christian genius until the close of the thirteenth century. I should
make it the subject of my lectures during ten years, if necessar>', and if God
leaves me life. These lectures would be taken down in shorthand, and would
compose the book in its first form, which I should publish and recast at the
end of every year. This method of proceeding would give to my written work
some of that glow which I possess sometimes in the tribune, but which for-
sakes me too often in my study. It would also have the advantage of hus-
banding my powers by not dividing them, and by gathering up to the same
end the little that I know and the little that I can do.

"The subject is admirable, for it includes the exposition of that long and
laborious education which the Church gave to modem peoples. I should
open with a volume of introduction, in which I should endeavor to set forth
the intellectual state of the world at the advent of Christianity ; what the
Church could accept out of the inheritance of antiquity ; how much she did
accept ; consequently the origin of Christian art and Christian science from
the days of the catacombs and the early Fathers. All my journeys in Italy
last year tended to this end.

" After this would come the picture of the world of the barbarians, pretty
much as I have drawn it in the volume which awaits your criticism ;* then

* Lis Cer mains.
23)

2 24 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanatn.

their entry into the society of Christendom, and the prodigious labors
of such men as Boetius, Isidore of Seville, Bede, Boniface, and Others, who
did not allow the night to close in, but carried the light from one end of the
invaded empire to the other, making it penetrate into places and peoples that
had remained inaccessible, and passing on the torch from hand to hand until
it reached Charlemagne. I shall have to study the work of reparation accom-
plished by this great man, and to show that letters, which had not perished
before him, did not die out afterwards.

" I would then show all the great things that were done in England in the
time of Alfred, in Germany under the Othos, and this would lead me up tc
Gregory VII. and the Crusades. I should then have the three most glorious
centuries of the Middle Ages : theologians like St. Anselm, St. Bernard, Pierre
Lombard, Albert the Great, St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure ; the legislators of
the Church and State, Gregory VII., Alexander III., Innocent III., and Inno-
cent IV. ; F"rederic II., St. Louis, Alphonsus X. ; the entire quarrel between
the priesthood and the empire ; the communes, the Italian republics, the
chroniclers and historians ; the universities and the renaissance of law. I
should have all that chivalrous poetr>% the common patrimony of Latin
Europe, and, underlying this, all the epic traditions peculiar to each people,
and which are the germ and beginning of the national literature. I should
assist at the formation of modern languages ; and my work would end with
the Divine Comedy, the grandest monument of this jjeriod, its abridg^nent, as
it were, and its glory.

" This is the scheme and purpose of a man who was very near dying
eighteen months ago, whose health is far from being yet fully restored, still
compelling him to all sorts of precautions, and whom you know, into the bar-
gain, to be full of irresolution and weakness."

But this elaborate programme was about to be arrested by-
events composing a chapter of contemporary history in which
Ozanam was to be called upon to play his part. The Revo-
lution of February was at hand, bringing in its wake lessons
of deep import, many-sided and salutary warnings to such as
could profit by them in the midst of the terrified disarray of
the explosion. In France revolutions are like death : no mat-
ter how long they are watched for, when they come they are
sudden and unexpected. Ozanam's attention had been very
little directed towards politics; the study of the past absorbed
so much of his time and thoughts that it left him small leisure
for occupying himself with the present, except in his personal
sphere of philanthropy and charity; but his mind was too
philosophical, his mental vision too clear, too penetrating, not

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanatn. 225

to discern the premonitory symptoms which were manifesting
themselves around him. He repeated constantly that he was
no politician, that he was not, never could be, " ufi des homines
de la situation" J and in a sense this was correct. Neverthe-
less, he was a true politician, inasmuch that he judged politics
like a Christian philosopher who held a solid grasp of the great
moral principles on which governments and politics should be
conducted. In his opinion it was the social, not the political,
question which should engage — for we may still speak in the
present tense — the chief attention and utmost efforts of poli-
ticians in France, and he often regretted that such men as M.
de Montalembert, for instance, devoted themselves so much
to politics instead of working more exclusively at the solution
of the social problems which were, and still are, the root of all
revolutions in the country. His policy was to avert them, to
prevent them by charity, by the extension of Catholic ideas,
by the drawing together of the classes, by breaking down the
barriers that separate them, and which by separation breed
mutual mistrust, ignorance, envy, and resentment. This was
what he had in view from the beginning of the foundation of
the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. He meant its action to
go far deeper than the alleviation, the moral help and improve-
ment, of the individual poor.

" A struggle is preparing between the classes, and it threatens to be terri-
ble," he says, in a letter already quoted ; " let us precipitate ourselves between
these hostile ranks, so as to deaden the shock, if we cannot prevent it."

In 1836 he wrote to his friend Lallier:

" The question which agitates the world to-day is not a question o{ political
forms, but a social question ; if it be the struggle of those who have nothing
with those who have too much, if it be the violent shock of opulence and
poverty which is making the ground tremble under our feet, our duty, as
Christians, is to throw ourselves between these irreconcilable enemies, and to
induce one side to give in order to fulfil the law, and the other to receive as
a benefit ; to make one side cease to exact, and the other to refuse ; to render
equality as general as it is possible amongst men ; to make voluntary commu-
nity of possession replace taxation and forced loans ; to make charity accom-
plish what justice and law alone can never do."

2 26 Life afid Works of Frederic Ozanam.

He adhered to this political creed all his life. Twelve
years later, on the eve of the " violent shock " which his far-
seeing sagacity foretold, he repeats, as in his student days :
" It is a social question ; do away with misery, Christianize
the people, and you will make an end of revolutions,"

Soon after his return from Italy he made -a speech at the
Cercle Catholique, in which he described what he had wit-
nessed in the Eternal City, the attitude of the Pope, the effect,
so far, of his liberal policy on the Roman population, and the
hopes and fears it embodied for Rome and for all the world.
The speech, which was an enthusiastic eulogy of the pacific
revolution which the Papal policy was effecting, ended with
the words, " Passons aux barbares ! Suivons He IX. ! " The
Press caught up the expression with a hue and cry against
Ozanam, and a hot controversy ensued between his party and
the newspapers. He took no part in it, but contented him-
self with explaining privately to a few friends the real mean-
ing of the contested sentence, which was that he considered Pius
IX. was now accomplishing what the liberal party all over the
world had been working and waiting for for nearly a quarter
of a century, and that it behoved Catholics to join in the
movement, and follow the Pope, passing over with him to the
barUarians, that is to say, " leaving the narrow camp of
monarchs and statesmen and going forward to the people, in
order to draw them into the Church." The camp of the
monarchs was perhaps too completely identified in Ozanam's
mind with the Grand Moiiatyue, who may be looked upon as
the last of the monarchs of France — the one in whose person
their prestige culminated to its apogee, who treated the people
as his property, and reduced society to a community of valets.
Louis Quatorze, after deifying monarchy through half a cen-
tury, gave the signal for its downfall and struck the funeral
knell of the national freedom which was to find its grave under
the ruins of the throne, plunging the nation headlong from the
absolutism of kings to the absolutism of democrats, replacing
the throne by the guillotine.

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 227

There may be some exaggeration in the extreme severity
of liistorians of Ozanam's school in their judgment of the
Grand Motiat que' s \)(}\\<^y dA\^ character; there can be none
in tlieir opinion of its consequences, in their scorn for the
slavish degradation of the human mind which the demi-god
exacted from all around him, and to which may be traced one
of the remote but certain causes of the subsequent national de-
cline, the corruption of society, the absorption of manly in-
dependence, patriotism, and energy in France. He it is who
is mainly responsible for the contempt of the great for the
people, the cruel oppression of the poor by the ruling classes,
and all that series of corrupt grievances which ended in the
mad license of 1793, driving back the nation, as by a law of
nature in France, under the yoke of despotism, until it again
broke out in anarchy, and again fell back under the rule of
armed force.

Ozanam, who persistently viewed the present in the light
of the past, saw no remedy for this delirious see-saw game
between despotism and- communism but to Christianize the
people, so that they should be capable of governing them-
selves, and thus pass effectually and lor ever from under the
unstable rule of kings.

The people had invaded the monarchy as the barbarians of
old invaded the empire, making much havoc and desolation,
laying waste fields and cities in their progress; but now the
time had come for them to prove themselves the saviours of
the society they had overturned, and to build the peace of the
world upon their conquest. It was necessary, in order to
hasten this event, that those who governed the people should
espouse their interests and their cause.

" When I say Passons aux barbares" explains Ozanam, " I mean that we
Bhould do as he (Pius IX.) h?s done ; that we should occupy ourselves with
the people, whose wants are too many and whose rights are too few ; who are
crying out, and fairly, for a share in public affairs, for guarantees for work,
and against distress ; who follow bad leaders, because they have no good
ones, and whom we have no right to hold responsible for the History 0/ the
GirondinSy which they don't read, nor for the banquets, where they don't feast.

228 Life and Works of Frederic Ozatiam.

We may not succeed in converting Attila and Genseric, but, with God's help,
we may make something of the Huns and the Vandals.

" Read the opening of the City of GoU, Salvian, Gildas, and you will find
that even in the fifth century many saints had more sympathy with the Goths
the Vandals, the Arian and idolatrous Franks, than with the degenerate
Cathorics of the Roman cities. Honestly, did it not require some indulgence
not to despair of the salvation of Clovis ? . . . Don't believe those who find
it easier to condemn a party, a people en masse, than to study the differences
that divide them. ... It grieves me, too, to hear people repeating the com-
parison between Pius IX. and Louis XVI., which is the pet thesis of the retro-
grade party, of the French and Austrian embassies in Rome, the thesis of all
those who love neither the Pope nor liberty. How can he be compared even
to St. Celestin ? Have we seen him bending under the burden ? He is
taunted with having had two secretaries killed under him ! Do we not all
know that the chief difficulty of a new era is to find new men ; that the most
terrible part of Pius IX. 's task is the political education of his ministers and
his people ? He has not inherited from Sixtus V. ; I know this quite well,
and I rejoice at it. We must remount perhaps to Alexander III. to find a
soul of the same metal as his."

But turning quickly from these incidental remarks on poli-
tics, Ozanam replunges, with a sense of pleasure and fitness,
into the calm studies of the past.

" Don't fear that I shall take to politics," he says to M. Foisset. " I find
the time long until m.y strength shall enable me to take up the plan I have
confided to you. I shall bless God if He allows me to bur>' my life in these
dear studies. I must bless all the same if He condemns me to go on working
as at present, only at intervals, and with wearisome precautions."

These lines were written on the 2 2d of February. On the
24th the Revolution broke out.

The general excitement, the upbreaking of terribly destruc-
tive forces through the calm surface, the uproar and universal
confusion of these periodically recurring crises, are apt to dis-
turb the presence of mind of the calmest. The most phleg-
matic politicians fly before the storm ; reformers lose faith in
their life-long cherished theories, and let them go. Ozanam
did not lose faith in his. When the tempest was let loose he
clung to them more firmly than ever, trying to make his voice
heard above the storm, that he might save the vessel and pre-
vent her from riding to utter and irreparable destruction. He
at once put on the uniform of a national guard and took his

Life ami Works of Frederic Ozaiiam. 229

turn of duty at the post of peril with all good citizens. But
this was not his proper place. He knew it, and repeated it
to those who, considering only his gifts and personal influence,
built hopes on him as a political leader in the new order of
things.

" You are wrong, my dear friend," he answers to M. Foisset's urgent en-
treaties in this direction ; " you are mistaken in fancying that I am one of the
men for this emergency. I am less up than any one in the questions that are
about to occupy the public mind. I mean the questions of labor, wages, in-
dustry, economy, more important than all the controversies of the politicians.
The history even of modern revolutions is almost unknown to me. I shut
myself up in the Middle Ages, which I studied with a kind of passion, and I
believe it is there I found whatever little light is left me in the darkness of the
present circumstances. I am not a man of action ; I was born neither lor the
tribune nor the public squares. If I can do anything, however little, it is in
my chair ; or perhaps in the quiet of a library, where I may extract from
Christian philosophy, trom the history of Christian times, a series of ideas
which I unfold to young men, to troubled and uncertain minds, in order to
reassure, to reanimate, to rally them m the midst of the confusion ot the
present and the terr-ble uncertainties of the future.

" ! may be mistaken, but it seems to me that the design of God is unfolding
itself to us more rapidly than we thought ; tnat the events of Vienna are the
final explanation of those of Paris and Rome ; and that we already hear a
voice crying : ' Ecce facio coelos novos et terram novam ! ' Since the fall of
the Roman empire the world has seen no such revolution as this. I believe
still in the invasion of the barbarians, but up to the present I see more Franks
and Goths than Huns and Vandals. I believe, in fact, in the emancipation
of oppressed nationalities, and I admire more than ever the mission of Pius
IX , raised up so opportunely for Italy and for tne world. In a word, I don't
disguise from myself either the perils of the times or the hardness of hearts.
I expect to see a great amount of distress, of disorder and perhaps pillage, and
a long eclipse ot literature, to which I had devoted my life. I believe that we
may be ground to powder, but that it will be under the triumphal car of Chris-
tianity."

He philosophized thus calmly on events and. their final is-
sue on the 15th of March — that is to say, when the Revolu-
tion was in full swing, three weeks after its outbreak.

His name had been immediately proposed on several lists
as candidate for the forthcoming elections, but Ozanam de-
clined the honor. A share, even passive, in the government
was a solemn responsibility for which he did not believe him-
self qualified. He might have allowed himself to be overruled

23° Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

as regarded his personal disability, but being better acquaint-
ed than most with the forces wliich the Catholics had at their
disposal, he remained convinced that they were not strong
enough to stand and conquer alone,

" The best thing for us to do is to pive our votes to the Republican canf!i-
dates who share our faith, and who offer serious guarantees for our liberty,"
he says ; but at the close of the same letter he adds: "Just as I had finished
this there comes a letter from Lyons full of urgent entreaties to let my name
appear amongst the candidates. They assure me that the division of parties
and votes is so great that I run a very good chance ofsecuring a majority. On
the other hand, I have not very robust health to think of braving the storms
of the Assemblee Nationale, and, moreover, my habit of public speaking is
not at all of that kind which I should require in the CWamber. My friends
here are divided. Some advise me to wait until the following Assembly.
What do you think ? I will wait till Saturday before writing to Lyons, so
that your letter may reach me in time. Write by return of post."

We can only conjecture what M. Foisset's answer was from
the result. Ozanam declined this ofifer, as he had done all
previous ones. He did not, however, consider himself eman-
cipated from that indirect share in the legislation of the
country which is the inalienable duty of every intelligent and
patriotic citizen. He refrained from taking part in the war that
was being carried on in the Chamber, but he entered the lists
of another arena, where the voice of tliose who defend truth
and all noble causes finds a powerful and far-reaching echo.

" My share in public life, from which no man should shrink to-day, is con-
fined to the little I shall do in the E7-e Xoitvelle, which it is decided wiil appear
on the 15th of April. If you come here (to Paris), as I hope, within a few
weeks, you will soon understand why the Univers could not remain the sole
organ of the Catholics. We must found a new work for these new times, one
which will not provoke the same angry feelings and the same mistrust. More-
over, SIS there are various opinions amongst Catholics, it is better that they
should be faithfully represented by various journals, and that, because of their
very diversity, the Church of France should cease to be responsible for what
passes through the brain of a journalist."

This may be the place to say a few words about the part
OzanaiB himself played as a journalist.

CHAPTER XXII.
1848-49.

His first experience in journalism dates, as we have related,
from the year 1832, when in his student days he wrote for
the Tribune Catholiqiie^ and applied the proceeds to the week-
ly quite of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

Simultaneously with that t)rave little paper M. Bailly
started a monthly magazine, called the Revue Europeenne^
which, like the Tribune^ was kept going entirely by his own
energy and the talent of his juvenile staff of contributors.
Both publications did their work in their day, but it was re-
stricted in many ways : funds were wanting, in the first place;
in the- next place, the apathy of the Catholics was in those
days, as it still is, disastrous to every enterprise of the kind;
the help that might have been easily given by a great num-
ber was withheld, from indifference, from want of apprehend-
ing the importance of the Press as a power within reach of
their party. Then, again, the recent catastrophe of the Ave-
uir was fresh in men's minds, and went far to paralyze what-
ever vitality and spirit of enterprise yet lingered amongst the
Catholics. The Avenir had opened the lists of Catholic con
troversy, and for a moment fixed the attention of France, we
might say of Christendom, on the interests of the cause ; but
the meteor which flashed so suddenly into fame had died out,
leaving only a dark track upon the waters which its fiery bril-
liance had for a moment lighted up so vividly. M. de La-
mennais' genius had planted the Catholic flag on a pedestal,
and, together with the eloquence of Lacordaire and Montalem-
bert, compelled the attention of the country to its claims. Men

«3»

232 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

looked on as at a magnificent display of arms in a knightly
tournament; they were dazzled and delighted, even when
their sympatliies were not with the combatants. But that
was over now. The knights had carried their prowess too
far, and were bidden to lay down their arms. A reaction of
shyness and inertia had ensued ; no one cared to reopen the
lists which had been closed in such signal humiliation. M.
de Lamennais, moreover, had towards the end infringed the
laws of Catholic chivalry by the use of forbidden weapons.
Hitherto religious controversy had, in all ages, Leen carried
on with a strict regard to the claims of charity ; even Bossuet,
wielding his giant sword against the " reformers," never for-
got this, but preserved in the heat of the fight that courtesy
of form which is the safeguard of dignity and mutual respect.
M. de Lamennais adhered to this precedent up to a certain
point, up to the period of the reaction which followed on the
second issue of his Essai sur V Indifference j then wounded
pride embittered his mind and warped his judgment ; he was
stung to fury by the just disapproval of the Catholics, and in
his fierce self-defence began first to dip his pen into the vit-
riol with which he was soon to bespatter the Church he be-
trayed. Lamennais was the first to inaugurate in Catholic
controversy that envenomed, violent, and aggressive style
which has since become an institution in France, and done
so much harm to charity, even when accompanied by well-
meaning zeal and undeniable talent.

The Avenir fell, and the country was still reeling under
the shock of the tremendous incident when Ozanam drew
his maiden sword as a journalist in the modest little field of
the Tribune Catholique. But he could not remain satisfied
with the scope he found here. Inexperienced as he was, he
understood the immense importance for the Catholics of hav-
ing an able organ of their own ; he was continually deplor-
ing their mistaken policy in keeping their religion out of sight,
as if it were strictly a private concern, whereas by making
common cause in public they could create a party powerful

Life ami ITorks of Freiferic Ozxnani. 233

enough to be a weight in the State, and thus force the Gov-
ernment to reckon with them.

From 1832 to 1833 the Tribune Catholique, on every
available occasion, put forward this idea of the necessity of
constituting the Catholics into a public body. They, how-
ever, listened with indifference, and gave no practical re-
sponse. The urgent need of a daily Catholic paper was also
brought before them, but with the same result. The latter
design was nevertheless on its way to fulfilment from an un-
expected quarter.

In the autumn of 1833 a priest named the Abbe Migne
came to Paris with the idea of founding a Catholic journal.
He had neither funds nor talent, but these sliglit disabilities
did not daunt him. He was one of those men who have
an indomitable faith in the success of his own ideas, and an
energy which supplements all other wants. A friend of his,
M. de la Tuilerie, who had accompanied him to Pans, in-
herited just at this moment a sum of ^^1,400 from a devout
relative, and it occurred to him that he could make no more
appropriate use of the legacy than to devote it to found a
daily Catholic paper under the Abbe Migne's management.
He accordingly handed over the money for this purpose.
The Abbe went to M. Bailly and consulted him as to how he
should set to work. M. Bailly at once proposed that he
should take the Tribune Cathobque^ and enlarge and improve
it, instead of creating an entirely new journal. " Prenez mon
ours," he said, pointing his argument with a familiar saying,
" take the Tribune Catholique, with its litde knot of five hun-
dred subscribers, and its zealous contributors, and let it ap-
pear daily and under a new name. This will be better than
breaking new ground, building on nothing, and dividing the
forces." The Abbe Migne closed with the oflfer, and the
Tribune CatJwlique disappeared one day to come forth the
next under the title of the Univers.

M. Bailly had undertaken to find writers, and he kept his
word. The Abbe Gerbet had retired into complete obscurity

234 Life and W orks of I'lciieric Ozanam.

since the suppression of the Avenir. He was Uving as he
could, picking up a few francs here and there by teaching,
very rarely by writing, and then anonymously. He was now
in Paris casting about for work that would bring him a crust
of bread. M. Bailly proposed to him to write a series of
articles for the Univers, which the Abbe Migne should sign,
it being necessary to conceal the real writer's name, lest it
should give a color to the new journal whicli it did not mean
to adopt. M. Gerbet assented joyfully, and on the ist of
November, 1833, the first number of the Univers appeared
with a leader on La Toussaint, whose lyrical beauty took all
Paris by storm. It was signed Migne, fondatcur, administra-
teur, direcieur, and at once made a name for " this provincial
Abbe who wrote like Fenelon," and attracted general curiosi-
ty to his paper. M. Gerbet continued for some time to write
under the pompous editorial signature, and sustained the
popularity which the first sensation had produced.

Ozanam, meantime, contributed his able and attractive
articles with unflagging zeal, and a talent that was rapidly
maturing by practice. Philosophy and history were his
special subjects, and he made them the medium of that sus-
tained defence of Catholic doctrine and calm logical contro-
versy on Catholic principles and 0[nnions which was so much
needed, and which up to this time was unknown in French
journalism. A contemporary and fellow- worker of Ozanam 's,
who stands high amongst French men of letters of the present
ri y, observed to the writer, speaking of the state of the press
at this period, " Ozanam was the Providence of the Catholic
press in France from 1833 '^^ 1840; without his talent, and
M. Bailly's energy, it would have utterly disappeared."

Ozanam all his life set immense store by the power of the
press as an engine in the Catholic service, above all in his
own country, where the nervous, impressionable nature of the
people renders them so peculiarly sensitive to its action.

When the Revolution of February broke out, he saw no
more efficacious barrier against the invading flood of revolu-

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanani. 235

tionary socialism than the influence of an enlightened press;
and this beliff induced him to start, with the cooperation of
the Pere Lacordaire, a new paper called the Ere Nouvelle, a
democratic Catholic organ, whose mission it was to reconcile
Catholics with the Republic.

The Pere Lacordaire and he diverged widely in their poli-
tical sentiments : Ozanam hailed the Republic as the pro-
bable and only possible salvation of the country ; Lacordaire,
like the great bulk of the Catholics, accepted it as a plank in
tlie shipwreck of constitutional monarchy. What else was
there to turn to ? The elder branch of the Bourbons was
not forthcoming, and the younger had snapped in their fingers
like a rotten reed. Lacordaire, who passed, and still passes
with many, for being an enthusiastic democrat, was not even
a convinced republican. He declared publicly at the Union
Club, on the 23d of February, the very eve of the Revolu-
tion, that he "had not an iota of republicanism in him."
And not long after this he says again, " I did not agree with
Ozanam's views. I did not wish to treat the question of
democracy theoretically, but confined myself to accepting the
fait accompli, and drawing from it as much advantage as
possible for religion and society. ... I accepted the re-
public, which gave us the freedom of the schools and the
freedom of religious bodies." *

The latter was indeed complete to a triumph, and calculat-
ed to plead loudly in favor of the new Government with the
founder of the Dominican order in France. When, on the
4th of May, the National Assembly appeared on the peristyle
of the Palais Bourbon to proclaim the Republic, the tonsur-
ed monk who stood in the midst of them, conspicuous by his
white cowl, was cheered enthusiastically as he descended the
steps, and conducted by the populace, in a sort of triumphal
march, to the gates of the Corps Legislatif.

This election was a source of immense satisfaction to
Ozanam, who had been active in preparing it by his writings

•Vide Montalembert, lEmrei Comj>lHis, vol. ix. p. 520, " Le Pere Lacordaire."

236 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

and his personal influence with the democratic Catholics.
The event, however, when it did occur, was the spontaneous
act of the Marseillais, without any intervention whatever, and
caused great surprise to the Pere Lacordaire himself, who
was not even aware that his name had been proposed as
candidate there.

Ozanam, meantime, carried on the good fight with his pen
both in public and private. The Christianizing of the people
was now, as ever, his chief pre-occupation.

" If a jjreater number of Christians, and above all of priests, had but occu-
pied themselves with the working class these last ten years, we should be more
secure of the future, and all our hopes rest on the little that has been done in
this direction up to the present," he writes to his brother the Abbe ; '' I quite
enter into your idea about the observance of Sunday. I will draw up a short
notice on the subject myself, and have it distributed and pasted up, and per-
haps we may by this means stir up the workingraen to send in a petition about
it themselves.

" On the other hand, I am going to have a meeting of Professors at my own
house this afternoon, where we shall discuss the feasibility of founding public
classes and a 'sort of night-school for these good fellows. The Carmelite
priests will give us what help they can, and Monseigneur * gives us the pre-
mises.

" Keep me informed of what is being done in this line at Lille, and also what
deputies the Catholics of the Nord are anxious to get into the Assembly.

" The first duty of Christians now is not to be frightened, and the second is
not to frighten others, but, on the contrary, to reassure the timorous, and to
make them understand that the present crisis is like a storm that cannot last.
Providence is still here, and we never see it allow these financial shocks, which
shake the material order of societies, to last more than a few months. Let us
not then be over-anxious about the morrow, saying. What shall we eat, and
how shall we clothe ourselves ? ' Let us only have courage, and seek first the
justice of God and the welfare of the country, and everything else will be given
to us over and above."

It required a courage as firmly rooted in supernatural trust
as Ozanam's to remain serene and undisturbed, meantime,
until the shock had passed away. A rising at Lille caused
him some alarm for the safety of his brother; but this personal
anxiety did not disturb his judgment of events or cast his
patriotic pre-occupations into the shade. " If the worlinieo

•ASrc

lAfe and Works of Frederic Ozatmni. 237

of Lille would but imitate the moderation and wisdom of their
brothers of Paris and Lyons ! " he exclaims.

" Here we are in this great and opulent metropolis for the last seven weeks
without a government or a regular police force, and yet we hear of no more
murders, robberies, or other misdemeanors than before. Don't believe those
evil-minded persons who go about spreading absurd stories ; there is not a
word of truth in them, and nothing is more contrary to the dispositions of the
population of Paris, who on every occasion seek to show respect to religion
and sympathy to the clergy. My friend, the Abbe Cherruel, who has blessed
thirteen trees of liberty, has been quite affected by the proofs of faith which he
found amidst this people, where, since 1815, the priest has been taught to see
only enemies of God and of the Cliurch.

" Occupy yourself as much with servants as with masters, with workmen as
much as with employers. This is henceforth the only means of salvation for
the Church of France. The cures must set aside their pious parish congrega-
tions, little flocks of good sheep in the midst of an enormous population to whom
the parish priest is a stranger. He must henceforth occupy himself, not only
with the indigent, but with that immense class of poor who do not ask for alms,
but who are, nevertheless, attracted by special preaching, by charitable asso-
ciations, by the affection that is shown to them, and which touches them more
than we think. Now, more than ever, we ought to meditate on a beautiful
passage in the second chapter of the Epistle of St. James, which seems as if it
had been written expressly for these times."

Ozanam addressed the same exhortations, with the same
unflinching boldness, to the clergy generally that he used
towards his brother. The Ere Noiivelle had gained the popu-
lar ear, and was to him the medium of the propagation of
Christian democratic principles.

" Priests of France, do not be offended at the freedom of speech which a lay-
man uses in appealing to your zeal as citizens!" he exclaims. "Mistrust
yourselves, mistrust the habits and customs of a more peaceful period, and
have less doubt of the power of your ministry and its popularity. It is true,
and we recognize it proudly, that you love the poor of your parishes, that you
welcome with charity the beggar who knocks at your door, and that you never
keep him waiting when he calls you to his bedside. But the time is come for
you to occupy yourselves with those other poor who do not beg, who live by
their laljDr, and to wliom the right of labor and the right of assistance will
never be secured in such a manner as to guarantee them from the want of
help, of advice, of coiisf)lation. The time is come when you must go and
seek those who do not send for you, who, hid away in the most disreputable
neighborhoods, have perhaps never known the Church or the priest, or even
the sweet name of Christ. Do not ask how they will receive you, or rather ask
{hose who have visited them, who have ventured to speak to them of God, and

238 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

who have not found them more insensible to a kind word and a kind action
than the rest of mankind. If you fear your inexperience, your timidity, the
insufficiency of your resources, unite in associations. Take the benefit of the
new laws to form yourselves into charitable confraternities of priests. Use
all the influence you have with Christian families, and urge them to give ;
press them in season and out of season, and believe that in compelling them
voluntarily to despoil themselves you are sparing them the unpleasant process
of being despoiled by ruder hands. Do not be frightened when the wicked
rich, irritated by your pleading', treat you as communists. They treated St.
Bernard as a fanatic and a fool. Remember that your fathers, the French
priests of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, saved Europe by the Crusades ;
save her once more by the crusade of Charity, and, as it involves no bloodshed,
be you its first soldiers." *

Then turning to the wealthy classes, he says :

" Rich men — for if your numbers be diminished, we still know whole pro-
vinces which the general distress has scarcely touched. . . . You were justi-
fied, during the first days of a revolution whose limits no one could foretell, in
thinking of your children and husbanding carefully the provision that the
chances of exile and spoliation rendered necessary. But foresight has its
limits, and He who taught us to pray for our daily bread nowhere advises us
to secure to ourselves ten years of luxury. . . . Spend ; do not deny yourselves
legitimate amusements at a moment when they may be meritorious ; perform
almsdeeds by furnishing work as well as help ; do not be afraid that you will
injure small trade by clothing out of your coffers those thousands of poor who
assuredly will buy neither clothes nor shoes for the next six months ; give to
the asylums and the schools, and do not forget those houses of refuge, con-
vents of the Good Shepherd, compelled by poverty to reduce their penitents
to a fourth and a tenth of the usual number, and thus close the door to re-
pentance when God is opening to it the gates of Heaven. + . . ."

" Representatives of the people, we respect the magnitude and the difficulty
of your task, . . . but do not plead want of time. Under the fire of the in-
surrection the National Assembly borrowed from the night the time the day
denied it. We saw you on the barricades haranguing the insurgents, encour-
aging the defenders of order. . . . How comes it, then, that we do not see
you at the post of peril now ? Why do you not rescue your mornings from
the crowd of petitioners who besiege you, and go and visit those wretched dis-
tricts, and climb those dark staircases, and penetrate into those naked rooms,
and see with your own eyes what your brothers are suffering ? You would in
this way become acquainted with the utter destitution that reigns amongst
them ; you would leave behind you to these poor creatures the memory of a
visit that had honored and at the same time consoled their wretchedness, and
you would come away penetrated with an emotion which brooks no delay. . . .
And do not plead want of money. If the ordinary resources should come to fail

• Vide ExtraiU de V Ere Nou-velle, vo!. vii. p. 273.
t Extraits de I'Ere NouvelU, vol. vii. p. 274,

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 239

you, if there should be nothing- more to hope for from credit and reserve funds,
hope everything still from the generosity of France. Open a national subscrip)-
tion for the workmen out of work — not only those of Paris, but of the whole
country ; let your nine hundred names figure first on the list of its patrons and
promoters ; let the bishops who sit in the Assembly invite their colleagues and
the thirty thousand cures of France to proclaim the subscription in all the pul-
pits ; let the Minister of the Interior order the forty thousand mayors to pla-
card it and popularize it in all the communes ; let it be made a question of
security for the timorous, of patriotism and charity for all. Take in kind as
well as money, and I promise you there is not a banker who will refuse you
a bank-note, not a peasant but will bring you his handful of wheat." *

The extraordinary confidence which Ozanam displayed in
an emergency like the present is the more striking from the
contrast it presents with the almost morbid nervous anxiety
that was habitual to him ; but in a national crisis his personal
individuality in some sort disappeared. He did not think of
himself, or measure chances by his individual power and re-
sources. He looked at himself only as a unit bound up in
the grand whole of France, and his trust in her, in her elastic
vitality, her moral soundness at the core, her energy, intelli-
gence, and ^ian was only second to his trust in God,

Personally he did not "know what fear was. This courage
was shared by his wife. " Thank God ! Amelie is courage-
ous," he says to more than one friend whom he keeps informed
of their position during the outbreak; and he constantly con-
gratulates himself on finding a support instead of a hindrance
in her presence throughout.

" Amelie will have set your mind at rest about us," he writes to the Abbe
Ozanam. " She win have told you that we were safe and sound, although we
were in terror for Charles Soulacroix, who has been three times under fire.
As for me, my detachment was stationed nearly all the time at the corner of
the Rue Garanciere and the Rue Palatine, then at the corner of the Rue
Madame and the Rue Fleurus. We had a good many false alarms ;. shots
were fired in the neighboring streets, and we had to patrol the Boulevards at
some risk, but, thank God, we did not pull a trigger. My conscience was in
order, so I should not have shrunk before the danger. I confess, nevertheless,
that it is a terrible moment when a man embraces his wife and child with the
feeling that it is perhaps for the last time."

• Extraits de I Ere A'ouvelU, p. 277.

240 Life and Works of Frederic Czaiiam.

Ozanam once experienced this " terrible moment " under
circumstances of peculiar interest. One Sunday morning, on
the 25th of June, he was on duty as a national guard with M.
Bailly and M. Cornudet at a post in the Rue Madame. The
three friends were conversing on the sinister prospects which
the prolongation of the struggle brought nearer every day ;
suddenly it occurred to them that the mediation of the Arch-
bishop of Paris might avail, if he could be induced to exert
it, and become the peace-maker in this disastrous civil war.
They started immediately to communicate the idea to the
Abbe Buquet, his Grace's Vicar-General, who was just then
attending his mother's death-bed close by Ozanam's house.
He warmly approved of it, and gave them a letter in a large
official-looking envelope, which might, in case of need, serve
as a pass through the barricades to the Archbishop's abode.
It was mid-day when Ozanam came home, and told his wife
the mission he was bound for. Her first impulse was one of
natural wifelike terror — " You are going straight to your
death ! You must not do it. I implore you not to go !" she
cried ; but Ozanam calmly proceeded to explain to her the
considerations wliich made it impossible for him to do other-
wise. The insurrection was now overcome everywhere except
in the Faubourg St. Antoine, where the strife continued as
fierce as ever; this was the manufacturing quarter, the centre
ot the workmen and artisans, and while it held out there was
no chance of security being restored to the city. Now, if the
Archbishop of Paris went forth bearing the olive-branch, and
the rebels accepted it, it would be, not only an immense
mercy to all, but a glorious triumph for the Church. Madame
Ozanam yielded without further opposition to these arguments,
though not, we may presume, without one of those inner
struggles and bloodless victories which brave souls only know.
The three friends set off to the Archbishop. After hearing
the motive of their visit, he said with simplicity, " I. have been
pursued by the same idea since yesterday, but how can it be
done? How could we manage to reach the insurgents?

Life and Wjrks of Frederic Ozanam. 241

Would General Cavaignac approve of the step ? And where
is he to be found ?"•

The three gentlemen answered all these objections, and
assured his Grace that he would be received all along the road
with respect by the population.

" Very well," he replied. "Then I will just slip on my
short cassock, so as not to be noticed, and you will show me
the way."

As he was leaving the room a priest came in in great ex-
citement, full of the fearful details of the insurrection, to which
he had just been a witness. Monseigneur Afifre listened with
some emotion, but without flinching in his resolution. In a
few minutes he was ready; but the three laymen, as if prompt-
ed by some presentiment of the triumph that awaited him,
ventured to suggest that he should wear his violet soutane
and let his archiepiscopal cross be visible on his breast. He
replied with the same simplicity as before, " You think that
would be better ? Well, then, I will put on my violet sou-
tane."

The populace did not belie the promise of Ozanam and his
companions. Nothing could exceed the veneration, the en-
thusiasm with which the Archbishop was greeted on his way
through the streets ; it was a triumphal march from the lie
St. Louis to the Assemblee Nationale. The troops, the na-
tional guard, the garde mobile flew to arms and sounded the
call ; the men stood bareheaded, the women and children
knelt down. It was a soul-stirring sight, for the homage was
unanimous and spontaneous, as if every one guessed instinc-
tively that the Prelate appeared in the midst of that vast arm-
ed multitude for some mighty purpose.

General Cavaignac received him with every mark of admira-
tion and respect, gave him a proclamation to the insurgents,
and a final offer of mercy if they laid down their arms. At
the same time he warned him of the danger he was going to
run. He told him that General Brea, who had been sent with
a flag of truce, had just been taken by the insurgents. The

242 Life aud Works of Frederic Ozanam.

Archbishop listened without showing the least emotion, and
the General and those present were deeply affected by the
simphcity with which he replied, " I am going" [Je pars).

Ozanam, in referring to this, to him, most painful episode,
always spoke with admiration of tlie extraordinary placidity,
the coolness, amounting almost to indifference, which Mon-
seigneur Affre displayed from first to last. There was no
enthusiasm ; he was not carried away and uplifted by any feel-
ing of " exaltation "; he was going simply to fulfil what he
believed a duty, and he went forth to the mission with a per-
fectly clear perception of its danger. On leaving the resi-
dence of General Cavaignac he requested Ozanam and his
two friends to allow him to return home alone. They pro-
tested, but seeing him determined they feigned to accept the
dismissal, and said good-by, but continued to follow him at a
little distance. He guessed how it was, and turning round
instinctively when they, came to the Pont des Saints Peres, he
waited for them to come up, and then entreated them to go
away, as their uniform of national guards gave them the ap-
pearance of an escort, which, under the peculiar circum-
stances, might prove a hindrance to his mission. They yield-
ed to this argument, and took leave of him with sorrow and
anxiety. It was not that they had any presentiment of the
terrible risk that he was running, but they thought their
presence would be a moral support, and they could not bear
to let him go on quite alone.

The Archbishop returned to his palace amidst the same de-
monstrations of sympathy wherever he was recognized. On
reaching home he was exhausted by the long walk, and,
after taking some refreshment, was persuaded to lie down and
rest. After this he went to confession, like a man about to
meet death. He left some few written directions, and then
set out to the Faubourg St. Antoine, accompanied by his
Vicars-General, the Abbe Jacquemet and the Abbe Ravinet.
As they went along he commented on the text, " The good
shepherd giveth his life for his flock." He continued still in

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 243

the same state of placid calm, as if taking a walk for ordinary
purposes. We know how it ended — how the olive-branch
was changed into the palm, and how the mission terminated
in martyrdom for the good shepherd. As they approached
the Place de la Bastille, a young man named Brechemin, who
had been following them for some time, tied his handkerchief
to the branch of a tree, and went before them, holding it aloft,
to the nearest barricade. The Archbishop climbed up, holding
the promise of pardon in his hand, when a shot was fired from
a window just above him, and he staggered back wounded to
death, exclaiming as he fell, " May my blood be the last
shed !"

It was about seven in the evening, but, owing to the dis-
order and excitement which ensued, the event was not known
in the city until the next day, when the news was received
with a universal cry of dismay, horror, and grief. It fell, as
may be imagined, with indescribable distress, amounting in
the first moments to an agony of remorse, on Ozanam and his
two companions; nor was it until the storm had passed away,
and they were enabled to look at events in their true propor-
tions, that they were consoled for their involuntary share in
the catastrophe. It is more than probable that, even if they
had not gone to the Archbishop, he would have acted on the
impulse which, as he told them, had been pursuing him since
the previous day, and gained his crown through some other
instrumentality. His dying prayer was heard: his death
seemed to deal the last blow at the insurrection, and his blood
was, as far as we know, the last shed in this fratricidal war ;
for it was not a revolutionary riot, an e'meuie, but, as Ozanam
said, " a civil war — that is to say, the most implacable of all
wars, and which only waits for an opportunity to break out
afresh."

Ozanam was disappointed but not crushed by the results of
the Revolution.

"You know," he writes to M. Foisset, "that I have always belonged to
what M. Lenormant calls the party 0/ hope. I believed, I still believe, in the

244 ^i/^' '''"''' iVorks of Frederic Ozanam.

possibility of Christian democracy ; in fact, I believe in nothing else as far as
politics are concerned. I have poured out the overflow of my heart in an article
aux gens de bien, which you have perhaps read."

This article, from which we have already quoted, ends
with the following appeal :

" Beware — for this is the peril of loyal souls and noble hearts — beware of
despairing of your age; beware of that famtheartedness which leads so many
to give up all effort when witnessing, as they say, the decline of France and of
civilization, and who, by dint of announcing the approach of the country's
ruin, end by precipitating it."

It was not indeed a moment to give up effort, but, on the
contrary, one which called peremptorily for strenuous ex-
ertion. C/w/nage,* that untranslatable word so full of terrors
to the Government, was abroad all through the country,
reigning like a ghastly potentate among the populations of
the large manufacturing towns and in the rural districts, defy-
ing all efforts to cope with it, and accumulating distress to a
degree which justified the worst fears of the Pessimists, and
explained that touching exclamation of a Sister of Charity to
Ozanam, " Oh yes, I fear death, but not near so much as the
coming winter ! "

He was indefatigable in his endeavors to communicate this
fear to those who might yet help to avert its worst realization,
and trumpeted forth warnings, appeals, schemes, and denuncia-
tions day after day in the columns of the Ere Nouvelle.

" This newspaper takes up every moment of time that I can snatch from the
examinations just now," he writes to his brother on the 3d of July. " I have
written five long articles this week. It is true, that in the midst of the ex-
citement of recent events I am incapable of any other work. We have, more-
over, the consolation of feeling that we are doing some good, for they have
been selling eight thousand copies a day in the streets of Paris."

It was not quite true to say that he found time for nothing
else than the duties of professor and journalist. He never let
a. day pass without going to visit the poor, and that immense
population of workmen whom the Chomage had reduced to

* The standing still for wauL of work.

Life and Works of Frederic Cz'iuam. 245

misery and starvation in the great metropolis. This was the
eneniy whom \.\-\ft gens de bitji had now to fight against and
conquer under penalty of seeing it rise up presently more fierce
and exasperated than before.

'• Now is the time for you to begin your war," says Ozanam ; " . . . now
that the troops are no longer bivouacking on the Boulevards, and that peace
has succeeded to the storm, it is right we should make our voice heard, and
proclaim those truths which have ceased to be dangerous, and to address to
good citizens a page which there is no longer any fear of the evil ones picking
up and turning into cartridges for the guns on the barricades. It is said that
the geiis de bien have saved France, and it may be true, for they comprise
France herself, minus the egotists and the iactious. . . . But it is not enough
to save France once or several times ; a great country wants to be saved every
day. You go and come from one end of the city to the other now in peace
and security, but the danger which you flatter yourselves has disappeared from
the streets is hid away in the garrets of the houses on either side. You have
crushed the insurrection ; you have now to deal with an enemy with which
you are not acquainted, which you dislike hearing spoken of, and about which
we are determined to speak to you to-day — misery .' . . . Two months have
now elapsed since trade has been in enjoyment of that peace which was to re-
store it to life, and yet in Paris alone the number of individuals out ot work
amounts to two hundred and sixty-seven thousand . They get assistance, it is
true, and this fact lulls your conscience and your alarms to sleep ; but those
who have the privilege of distributing the public help are less reassured. They
go, for instance, to the twelfth arrondissement, one of the strongholds of the
insurrection, and out of about ninety thousand inhabitants they find eight
thousand families inscribed on the list of the benevolent fund, twenty-one
thousand nine hundred and ninety-two who receive extra help, making a total
of some seventy thousand individuals who are living on the precarious bread
of alms. Half of this district, all the Montagne Ste. Genevieve, and all the
neighborhood of the Gobelins, is composed of narrow, crooked streets, where
the sun never penetrates, where a carriage could not venture without risk, and
where a man in a coat never passes without making a sensation, and attract-
ing to the doorsteps groups of naked children and women in rags. On either
side of a filthy sewer rise houses five stories high, many of which shelter fifty
families. Low, damp, and noxious rooms are let out at one franc and a half
a week when they have a fireplace, and one franc and a quarter when they
have not. No paper, often not a single piece of furniture, hides the naked-
ness of the wretched walls. In a house of the Rue des Lyonnais we ourselves
saw ten married couples without even a bed. One family lived in the depths
of a cellar, with nothing but a handful of straw on the earthen floor, and a
rope fastened from wall to wall, from which the poor creatures hung their
bread in a rag to keep it out of the reach of the rats. In the next room a
woman had lost three children from consumption, and she pointed in despair
to three others who awaited the same fate. The upper stories presented the

246 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

same consoling aspect. Right under tlie roof a garret without windows, only
pierced with two holes, each closed by a pane of glass, afforded shelter to a
tailor, his wife and eight children. Every night they crawled on their hands
and feet to the straw that was spread by way of a couch at the extremity of
the garret, close under the slanting roof. We need not dwell on those
amongst them who are better off; those who, for six persons, can supply two
beds, into which are huddled pele-mele the sick and the healthy, boys of eigh-
teen with girls of sixteen. The most fortunate of these wretched beings want
food of some sort, and if they die of consumption let it not be said that they
perish from hunger in the most civilized city in the world. . . . And here at
least there is no room for that ready excuse of the hardhearted, that the poor
are wretched by their own fault, as if the want of light and of morality were
not the most deplorable and crying of miseries for every society that wishes to
live ! Here, when the visitor accompanies the official help by a kind word
that pleads for its humiliating insufficiency, he finds, the more he penetrates
into the intimacy ot the poor, that they have more blame than sympathy for
the insurrection, and that they regret the workshops far more than the clubs.
Even the small number of diseased minds that still cherish dreams of in-
cendiarism generally yield to a friendly and sensible conversation, and end by
believing in those virtues the very names of which they had been taught to
execrate — charity, resignation, patience. Amongst these inhabitants of the
Faubourgs, whom it is the custom to represent as a people devoid of all faith,
there are ven- few who have not a cross at the head of their bed, a picture, or
a bit of blessed palm — very few who died at the hospital of their wounds of
June without having opened their arms to the priest and their hearts to for-
giveness. In these foul cellars and garrets, sometimes next door to sloth and
vice we have often come upon the loveliest domestic \'irtues, on a refinement
and'intelligence that one does not always meet with under gilded ceilings ; a
poor cooper, of past seventy years of age, tiring his infirm arms to get bread
for the child of a son who had died in the flower of his age ; a deaf and dumb
boy of twelve, whose education has been carried on by the self-devotion of his
poor relatives with such success that he begins to read, and knows God and
prav<^ We shall never forget one poor room, of irreproachable cleanhness,
where a mother, clothed in the threadbare costume of her native place, Auver-
gne. was working awav with her four daughters, modest young girls, who
onlv raised their eves from their work to answer the stranger's questions.
The father was nothing but a hodman, working by the day at a mason's ; but
the faith which these honest people had brought with them from their native
mountains illuminated their lives, just as the sunbeam that stole in through
their tiny window lighted up the pious pictures pasted on the walls." *

This description of the pariahs of the Faubourgs was no
hishly-colored picture drawn to excite interest in their
misery ; it was the truth, free from the least conscious exag-

• Extraits de VErt NoHvelU, p. 265.

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 247

geration. We find many passages of Ozanam's private cor-
respondence which fully corroborate the public statement
both as regards the fearful sufferings of the poor and the ad-
miration which their virtues frequently excite in the writer's
mind.

"... If I turn wearily from the controversies that are agitating Paris, I am
torn to pieces by the sight of the misery that is devouring it," he says to M. Fois-
set. '• The Society of St. Vincent de Paul finds grave duties here, and it may
be that God has permitted its rapid development only that it might be ready
for the task He was preparing for it. Besides, it is well to see on their own
hearth, disarmed, and surrounded by their wives and children, these poor fel-
lows whom one has seen at the clubs and on the barricades. One is astound-
ed to find how much Christianity there still is amongst this people, conse-
quently how much there is to work upon. Ah, if we only had some saints !
But can we doubt that God has a few in reserve for a centun,- to- which He
has given Pius IX. and the Archbishop of Paris ?

" Let us pray, and let us not fancy that the end of France has come ; for at
the present moment the end of France would be the end of the world. WTien
we look around us, where is there a sound spot on the face of the earth ?
where do we see a people that are not as grievouslj* diseased as ourselves ?
And yet can we suppose for a moment that the temporal destinies of Chris-
tianity have reached their final issue, and that God has nothing more to do
with the world except to judge it ? This is what the Legitimists said in 1830,
this is what you and your party strove so hard to prevent us all saying, this is
what I trust and hope I shall never say, not if I saw the whole of modern so-
ciety perish, assured, as I am, that it would cost God less to raise, up a new
race, a new society, than to limit the work of His Son's blood to the little
that these eighteen centuries have seen accomplished ! "

Ozanam had started a sort of crusade against this gospel
of despair, and the popularity which the Ere Novvelle met
with in all ranks and parties showed that the deepest public
sympathies were with him, and that the people responded at
heart to liis propaganda of hope. He did not confine him-
self to pointing out the evil ; his chief aim was to discover its
radical causes, and by this means to suggest and compel the
remedy. He believed that great things might be done for
society by improving its existing conditions, but not by vio-
lently overturning them. " It is within, not without, that we
must seek for the sources of men's happiness and its princi-
pal enemies," he declares j " and we shall have done nothing,

248 Lije and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

absolutely nothing, so long as we have not carried light and
reform into those internal disorders which time does not right,
which are more incurable than diseases, which last longer
than the chomage, and go on multiplying pauperism long after
the grass of the graveyard has effaced the last traces of civil
war.

" God did not make the poor ; He sends no human creatures into the chances
of this world without providing' them with those two sources of riches which
are the fountain of all others — intelligence and will. . . , Why should we hide
from the people what they know, and flatter them like bad kings ? It is human
liberty that makes the poor ; it is it that dries up those two primitive fountains
of wealth, by allowing intelligence to be quenched in ignorance, and will to be
weakened by misconduct. The working-men know it better than we do.
. . . God forbid that we should calumniate the poor whom the Gospel
blesses, or render the suffering classes responsible for their misery-, thus pan-
dering to the hardness of those bad hearts that fancy themselves exonerated
from helping the poor man when they have proved his wrong-doing. , . .
Of the three passions which are the ruin of popular morals, gambling, wine,
and women, France, to her eternal honor be it said, has banished the first,
and opened the Caisses (fEpargfie* with the same hand that closed the door
upon lottery-offices and gaming-houses. . . . But while we have put crushing
taxes on salt, meat, and all necessaries of life, we have not yet discovered in
the arsenal of our fiscal laws the secret of arresting the multiplication of dis-
tilleries, of raising the price of alcoholic liquors, of restricting the sale of those
detestable, adulterated, poisonous drinks that cause more sickness than all the
rigors of the seasons, and make more criminals than all the injustice of men
combined. \\'hat reforms have you introduced into the public amusements
of this Parisian population, so infatuated about pleasure, so ready to let itself
be led to the ends of the earth, not with bread, as it has been said, but with
amusement ? Last winter the Prefecture of Police delivered /oicr thousand
licenses for night balls. The State puts no limit to those unhealthy diver-
sions, which the good sense of our fathers contracted within the six weeks of
the carnival. Everj' year it authorizes the opening of a new theatre in some
wretched haunt of the Faubourgs, where the sons and daughters of the people
are fed nightly upon the scum of a literature whose cynicism would revolt the
chastity of the opera pit. And when, for six months of the year, the youth of
the working classes have spent their evenings and their nights in these horri-
ble dens, where their health runs as much danger as their morals, you are
surprised to see them turn out miserable puny creatures, incapable of supply-
ing the military contingent, but supplying innumerable recruits everj- year to
the prisons and the hospitals ! Let us not imagine we have done our duty by
the people when we have taught them to read and write and count. . . ,
When it was a question of crushing out the last embers of the insurrection

* Savings-banks for the poorer classes, protected wid managed by the State.

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 249

there was no need of delays and formalities lo pitch twenty camps on the
Boulevards of Paris, and up to the verj- doors of the Hotel de Ville ; and here
we are, after four months, when in the twelfth arrondissement alone there are
four thousand children without shelter, — here we are still struggling amidst
adjournments, motions and debates, fighting to overcome I know not what
scruples of committees, boards, administrations, and the rest of it, who are
te.Tified that the State will be ruined and overturned if the education of the
young ouvriers is confided to Sisters and Brothers, to teachers capable, that is,
of teaching them something more than how to sp)ell out the syllables of the
newspaper, and to scrawl the ordre du Jour oi the barricades on the wall with a
piece of coal ! '' *

In spite of Ozanam's protests that he was no politician, we
cannot read these social articles without feeling that he pos-
sessed the truest instinct of a politician, if politics mean the
science of governing wisely and well; they are, in fact, an
exposition of those principles of Christian democracy which,
however Utopian they may sound, he considered the best
practical solution to the difficulties of civilized states.

The newspaper in which these articles appeared was short-
lived. There is something almost pathetic in the story of the
enterprise, born, as it was, of an impulse of hope and patriot-
ism, in an hour of national shipwreck, and killed, not by the
Revolution or the Government, but by the apathy and dis-
cord of the very party whom its mission was to serve and to
enlighten. The Ere Nouvelle gave a voice to the party of
hope, and held out a beacon to those Catholics who, instead
of despairing amidst the perils that surrounded them, en-
deavored to secure the triumph of the Church in the triumph
of democracy. But it was misunderstood by some, attacked
by the other journals of the party, until at last, seeing that
its mission had become impossible, and that it could only
exist by fighting, not for or with, but against its own, it with-
drew from the lists, leaving behind it, in a few intelligent and
grateful minds, the memory of a brave career and the echo of
a voice that had faithfully spoken the truth, irrespective of
parties.

The P^re Lacordaire and Ozanam received many touching

• Bxtraiti <U fSrt XouvflU, p. 387.

250 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

testimonies when it was announced that the journal was about
to be suspended. One was characteristic enough to be
worth mentioning. A freethinker of Ozanam's acquaintance
wrote to him, condoling with him on the vexations to which
he had been subjected from many quarters, and expressing, in
terms as sincere as they were glowing, his admiration for the
talent and noble sentiments with which the Ere Nouvelle had
been conducted. Ozanam was surprised by this unexpected
proof of sympathy, and made the following answer :

"... Permit me to say, my dear colleague, that if, instead of re-
maining outside, on the threshold of Christianity, you had, like me, the
happiness to live within it, and to have studied it for eighteen years ; if you
had gone beyond Bossuet, who undoubtedly represents a portion and an
epoch of the Church, but with the errors of his time ; if you had fed on those
great doctors of the Middle Ages, those Fathers whose works would be a
study so worthy of your noble intellect, you would not trace to the Revolution
either liberty, or tolerance, or fraternity, or any of those grand political
dogmas which have been claimed by the Revolution, but which descend from
Calvar)'. You would find, for instance, that my opinion concerning the
intervention of the secular arm agreed with St. Bernard's, St. Martin's, and
St. Ambrose's ; that the Inquisition of Spain, sustained by the Spanish kings,
was blamed and disowned by the Popes, and that the greater number of
heresies unsheathed the sword before it was raised against them. And since
you speak so kindly of the Ere Nouvelle, I may add, that if you knew more
about it ; if you knew the encouragement we have received from Pius IX.,
from the Archbishop of Paris, and the most estimable members of the clergy
of France, you would not represent to yourself the few intelligent Catholics
you imagine us to be as a little school of theosophists, founded on the ruins pf
the old creed, and trying to build up out of its fragments a religion after their
own fashion and on their own level.

"No, you must not attribute to me an honor that I repudiate, thai of being
better than my Church, which is yours also. For it is to your Catholic
mother and your forefathers that you owe the traditions of Christian educa-
tion, that you owe that nobility of soul, that delicate straightforwardness,
that stanch honesty, that have always drawn me to you .

"You rate me too high, and j'ou know me imperfectly, when you assume
that I am alone, or nearly so, in an order of ideas which inspire you with
esteem. I am of the number of those who feel the want of being surrounded
and sustained, and God has not let me want for these supports. You single
me out, and I am but a weak Christian. You deserve to know better ones,
and so you will some day. You will see that this Church, which was never
without her troubles, which the Pagans of St. Augustine's day fancied had
come to an end, just as did the Albigenses of the thirteenth century and the

Life a fid Works of Frederic Ozatiani. 251

Protestants of the sixteenth, has always had her lights, her virtues, and, above
all — may you experience it ! — her consolations, which alone are equal to the
trials of life and the pangs of a suffering age."

It was in these consolations chiefly that Ozanam found
strength to endure and combat one of those trials which was
severely felt by the Catholics of this particular age, namely,
the warfare of miserable bickerings and violent reprisals car-
ried on by a certain portion of the Catholic press.

In the autumn of the year 1849, about a year after the
death of the Ere Nouvelle^ a new paper, intended to replace
that journal, was started, and Ozanam was invited to become
a regular contributor. His health, however, made it impos-
sible for him to comply, even if he had been tempted to
throw in his lot once more with the journalists. "The
Faculty of Medicine have decided that politics form no part
of my regime for the present," he replies to a friend who
wanted to draw out his opinion on some political question ;
and he obediently restricts himself to the laborious duties of
his professorship,

" Don't believe those who tell you 1 am going to re-enter the lists of
journalism," he says to M. Dufieux ; "I am too thankful that the present
moment presents no urgent reason for compelling me to quit my barbarians
and my Fathers of the Church. The truth is that the Archbishop lends his
patronage to a new paper, called the Moniteur Rcligieux^ which the Abbd
Gerbet is to edit, and to which I shall probably contribute an article now and
then. I am sorry not to be able to do more for an enterprise which will be so
useful if it only serves to relieve us from the responsibility which the Univers
and the Ami de la /Religion cast upon us. My dear friend, with the exception
of the Archbishop and a handful of men around him, you only meet people
who dream of the alliance of the throne and the altar ; nobody seems to re-
member the fearful state of irreligion to which this doctrine led us, and there
is not a Voltairian encumbered with an income of a few hundreds who is not
wild to send everj'body to Mass, on condition that he does not go himself.
Still I see the slackening of that blessed impulse of return and conversion
which made the joy of my youth and the hope of my manhood, and I ask my-
self if, when our hair has grown grey, we shall still be able to kneel before
the altar without hearing on every side those hisses which, twenty years ago,
pursued the Christian to the door of the church. Let us watch and pray."

It was natural enough that a democrat, so ardent in his
convictions, should feel some alarm on beholding the country

252 Life atid Works of Frederic Ozatiam.

lapsing into the same road which had led tlie men of the
Restoration to ruin.

" If you knew their illusions, if you could hear them talk !" he cries in de-
spair. " And, mind, I don't speak of the elders, who, on the contrary, are
the most experienced and the most tractable ; I mean the young men, states-
men of from five-and-twenty to thirty, who, in the fire of their enthusiasm,
who won't hear of such things as a constitution, a national representation, a
press ! The worst of it is, that religion is compromised by these madmen,
who pique themselves on defending it from the Tribune, and who fill the
green-room of the opera with the noise of their adventures.

" The Univers is working hard at making the Church unpopular, picking
holes in everything that is most popular about her, attacking the Pere Lacor-
daire, for instance, in order to rehabilitate the Inquisition. Confess that the
moment is well chosen ' There are two schools that have striven to serve
God by the pen. One sets up, as its head, M. de Maistre, whom it exaggerates
and garbles. It presents truth to mankind, not by its attractive but its
most repulsive side. It aims, not at conciliating the unbelieving, but at stir-
ring up the passions of believers. The other school was that of Chateaubri-
and and Ballanche, and is still that of the Pere Lacordaire and the Abbe
Gerbet. Its aim is to search out all the secret fibres of the human heart that
can attach it to Christianity, awakening in it the love of the true, the good,
and the beautiful, and then showing it in revealed faith, the ideal of those
three things to which every soul aspires. Its mission is to bring back those
who have gone astray, and to increase the number of Christians.

" I confess that I prefer to belong to this latter school, and I never will for-
get that saj-ing of St. Francis de Sales, ' that we catch more flies with a spoon-
ful of honey than with a barrel of vinegar.' "

Unfortunately, the sweet wisdom of the saying was not
adopted by the school which Ozanam repudiates, and whose
leaders fully vindicated his judgment by their unwarrantable
aggressiveness. He was himself the least aggressive of men ;
he was never given to sitting in judgment on others, and there
is no instance on record of his ever having taken the initiative
in an attack. But this doctrine of reserve and gentleness,
which he practised as faithfully as he taught it, made him sus-
pected in the eyes of those who considered it their duty to
hold the lash perpetually uplifted. A man who was so slow
to foredoom any one, however wicked, to eternal punishment,
was likely to hold loose opinions on the dogma, and, accord-
ingly, on the strength of this assumption, he was denounced
as a deserter, a Cathohc who had ceased to believe in hell.

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 253

Ozanam was philosophically scornful of such attacks in
general, but he was stung to the quick by this one. It was
not, however, until he found that the calumny was gaining
ground, and called for a direct denial, that he condescended
to clear himself. He did this in a letter to a friend who had
momentarily wronged him by believing the charge.

". . .1 wished," he says, " to devote my life to the service of the faith.
It seemed to me that ray days would have been well spent if, in spite of my
own insufficiency, I succeeded in gathering and keeping round my chair a
number of young spirits, in reinstating the principles of Christian science, and
forcing my audience to respect what they had hitherto despised — the Church,
the Papacy, and the Monastic life. I should like to have collected these same
thoughts into books more durable than my lectures, and all my desires would
have been accomplished if a few wandering souls found there a reason for abjur-
ing their prejudices and coming back, with God's help, to the truth of Catholicism.

" This is what I have been striving for these ten years, without any ambi-
tion for a higher destiny, but also without having ever had the misfortune to
desert the field. And yet you, who know me so well — ^you who have received
the overflowing of my soul from its very depth — you who have followed my
career step by step, after opening the doors of it to me — you are ready, at the
bidding of a newspaper, to doubt my faith ! A layman without authority,
without any sort of mission, who does not even sign his name, accuses me of
having, through cowardice, through self-interest, betrayed the common cause,
and taunts me with what he calls my denials, whereupwn you take the alarm,
and begin to fear that I don't believe in hell ! You put me in the painful
necessity of having to bear testimony to mj-self. Well, St. Paul, when he was
unjustly accused, had to bear witness to himself. Dear friend, should I be, as
I now am, in my thirty-seventh year, worn out prematurely with cruel infir-
mities, if I had not been actuated by the desire, by the hope, by the delusion,
if you will, of sen-ing Christianity ? Was there really no p>eril in bringing
forward the religious question, in reinstating, one by one, the institutions of
Catholicism, when, a mere assistant professor, I had to consider the philoso-
phical opinions of those who held my future at their disposal — when alone I
stood by M. Lenormant, assisted at his cours, and supported him by my pre-
sence and my voice, when later, in 1848, the Revolution passed daily under the
very windows of the Sorbonne ? If I have had some success as a professor
and a lecturer, it is to courage, to work, and not to base concessions that I owe
it. It is true I am nothing but a poor sinner before God, but He has not yet
let me cease to believe in eternal punishment. It is false that I have ceased
to believe in it ; that I have denied, dissembled, or attenuated that or any
other article of faith. And permit me to add that if my friends at Lyons had
seen the last work I published, La Civilisation Chretienne cltez les Francs
they would jserceive that I there attacked the most important historians of the
present time on every point where they stand opposed to Catholic truth, to the
honor of the Church and the Papacy,

2 54 ^^/^ ^'^^i I Forks of Frederic Ozanam.

" It is equally false that I took the initiative in this controversy, and gave
the bad example of polemics amongst Christians. I should not have said one
word if the Lnivers had not challenged me in its disastrous discussion about
the Inquisition. I abhorred its opinions ; I knewr the mischief it was doing,
and how strongly the Archbishop disapproved of it. It summoned me by
name to declare whether ornot I agreed with it. I seized the first opportunity
to assert that I did not, but without picking a quarrel, without even naming
the Univers, much less any of its writers ; without doing the least thing to
give them a right to be abusive or personal. I am so far from sharing this
fighting prop>ensity that I thought it more Christianlike not to answer at all.
I had a right to remain silent if I chose, and many ad\-ised me to do so. For
the sake of peace, however, 1 decided otherwise, though I was amply compen-
sated by the great number of estimable persons who loudly expressed their
indignation at the attack. I felt that it behoved me, nevertheless, to justify
myself to you first, because of your friendship, and, in the next place, for the
sake of those amongst our friends who may have shared your alarm, and to
whom I beg you will conimunicate this letter."

CHAPTER XXIII.

1850.

In the autumn of 1850 Ozanam made a tour in Brittany
with his wife and child. His health was again a cause of
serious alarm, and he was forbidden to touch a pen during
the holidays. But no prohibition could reduce him to com-
plete idleness. He declared, and with truth, as regarded the
severe finish he exacted in his work, that writing was laborious
to him as a birth, yet in another sense it was as easy and
spontaneous as thought; he could never come upon a place
or an event of striking interest without being irresistibly
moved to write off an account of it to some absent friend.
Thanks to this habit of photographing his impressions, a full
and graphic narrative of his various journeys has been pre-
served to us. So it was on this Breton tour; every incident
of the road is related in a series of spirited letters to his
brothers. When his brother Charles scolded him for this
disobedience to the Faculty, Frederic disarms him by the
touching argument, " I cannot see a beautiful landscape with-
out longing to pass on my enjoyment to those I love." And
again he urges as his excuse, " I feel a pang when I lie down
at night and think that I have done nothing all day ; a scrap
of letter looks like something, and keeps up the delusion that
I am still capable of stringing a few words together."

The manners and customs of Brittany, which have proved
such a rich storehouse to poets and legend-mongers, have
seldom been more faithfully and delicately depicted than by
Ozanam in these rapid wayside notes. The memory of Italy
guards him, however, from undue enthusiasm, and compels
him to look at Brittany with an eye which grander anci love-

2SS

256 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

lier scenes have rendered critical. He is far, nevertheless,
from spurning the beauties of the fair Bretagne; he admires
the stern shore of St. Gildas, the glorious bay of Douarnenez,
the fresh valleys of Finistere, and the gay gardens that flower
along the banks of the stream of Quimper. But his warmest
sympathies are for the Bretons themselves.

" Italy has fine landscapes, but its peoples are less strongly marked ; one
must go to Greece to find such picturesque customs, and make the tour of the
world to find a faith so firm, men so brave, and women so pure. . . . We
have been very fortunate in our sight-seeing. We have fallen in with village
fetes (pardons)^ wrestling-matches, weddings, and, to crown our good luck,
last Friday, in crossing the little village of Ploneven, we fell in with a nume-
rous company coming out from a funeral. Thirty or forty splendid men, all
dressed alike in blue doublet and white trousers, with long hair falling ; tliey
passed from the church to the tavern close by, to commemorate worthily the
virtues of the deceased."

The pardofi of St. Anne d'Auray, the national shrine of
Brittany, which is frequented by thousands of pilgrims annu-
ally on the 28th of July, was one of the most delightful inci-
dents of his tour :

" The procession — that is, the finest part of the fete — came after vespers.
Picture to yourself a green plain, sloping down to the sea, just then glittering
with the parting beams of sunset. It was here the cortege formed itself,
opened as usual by little maidens dressed in white, with our five children *
bringing up the rear, and forming as pretty a group as you can fancy ; after
this came the boys, the women, the sailors, preceded by a large flag of the
republic, and bearing on their shoulders a little ship with a Madonna on the
quarter-deck ; then came the priests, the statue of our Lady on a litter, the
niayor, with a numerous group of men, and the crowd following on behind,
or dispersing so as to get a view of the procession as it wound through the
striking landscape. The most touching thing of all was a young man of
three-and-twenty, destined to the priesthood, but struck with a disease from
which he will never recover. He had dragged himself to the threshold of his
door, and stood there, all in black, happy to contemplate for the last time the
procession of his native place. The banners fluttered gaily, to the pride of
tliose bearers who were strong enough to make head against the wind. The
statue of our Lady shone out from afar in the blaze of the setting sun, which
delineated brightly the rigging of the votive ship. Above it all soared the
chanting of the litanies, and the faith of a people to whom doubt is unknown,
and the prayer of the young deacon who was offering up the sacrifice of his

* His little Marie and the four children of his host, M, de Francheville.

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 257

life : how could God not be touched by the spectacle ? How could those who
beheld it remain unmoved ?

"When the hour for returning came, we saw the litttle barks rowing out
from every side, bearing away the good folks who had come from the neigh-
boring shores to assist at the fete. We did the same ; and I shall not try to
describe to you the serenity of that evening hour, the beauty of that sheet of
water, blue as the lake of Geneva, the flocks of sea-gulls that seemed to rise
up from the crest of the waves to fly before us. We, nieanwhile, were seated
at the foot of our mast, sheltered by our picturesque sail, with our little ones
playing safely between our knees ; and thus softly we were borne to the beach
of the castle. . . ."

He culls a legend here and there, and sends it, like a
flower, in his letters home:

" In the fourteenth century there dwelt in these woods a poor idiot, who
went on his way morning and evening, singing the Ave Maria and begging
his bread. He died, and was buried like a dog outside the cemetery ; but
after a few weeks there blossomed forth on his grave a beautiful lily, whose
leaves bore, in letters of gold, Ave Maria. The news went quickly round
and stirred the inhabitants ; pilgrims and offerings poured in, and soon there
arose, like another flower, on the tomb of the poor idiot that pretty church of
Notre Dame du Fol-Goat, laden with the most exquisite chiselling of Gothic
art."

The interests of the poor held their place in Ozanam's
thoughts here as ever, and he relates, with grateful delight,
how at Morlaix he and Madame Ozanam were affectionately
entertained for three days by a family to whom they were
complete strangers, their only link being the brotherhood of
St. Vincent de Paul.

" I visited here a conference just established, but already working actively,"
he informs his brother ; " then they insisted on my holding forth at the Con-
gress, where the savants of Britanny had assembled to discuss the improvement
of the equine race and druidical stones ; to sink the question of the bards and
of manure. So you see it is no use my flying from work to the depths of the
provinces ; it seizes me on the way ; and I had at Morlaix not a little Sor-
bonne, but a downright College de France, with the fairer half of mankind
amongst my audience. I did not pay, however, for this disobedience to my
Hippocrates, and I was brisk enough to set out on Saturday in the most re-
markable vehicle that we have yet seen. A passer-by exclaimed, on beholding
our venerable equipage : ' The inventor of that chariot ought to have taken
out a patent I ' "

He bears testimony to the patriarchal hospitality which

258 Life atid Works of Frederic Ozafiam.

greeted him everywhere in the old manors and keeps of Brit-
tany, where he witnessed " domestic virtues and traditions of
honor, too rare in France nowadays, unfortunately." But
he is less satisfied with the state of political feeling amongst
his hosts.

" I have come across the strangest opinions, Legitimist passions excited by
the accounts from Wiesbaden, and the programme of M. de Barthelemy
everywhere received with transports of joy by people who desire absolute
royalty. And yet outside the castles I see few signs to confirm these hopes.
The {peasantry would fight again for their altars ; they would not give a drop
of their blood to the parties that are fighting for power. In the bottom of
their hearts they incline towards royalty, but with a singular indifference, and
a perfect disposition to let any government have its way so long as it does not
close their churches. I have seen in Morbihan, the classic land of Chouati-
verie* the Republican flag carried before the statue of the Blessed Virgin,
and the villagers decked in tricolor ribbons at their weddings, while the gen-
tlemen wore green and white ones. I saw them dancing in rounds to the
tune of a song whose burden was Vive Napoleon ! and I \\^'ax^grandes dames
bewail the apathy of those louts who actually have the bad taste not to go and
get themselves shot in order to restore to these ladies their tabourets at Court.
M. de Carne, whom I met at Quimper, assures me that the clergy in these
parts tend toward democracy."

We should form a very incorrect idea of Ozanam if we re-
presented him as always absorbed in wise thoughts or philo-
sophical observations, " No one enjoyed les bonnes be'tises
more than he did," says a friend who knew him all his life.
He never grew too wise for so " great a happiness in Hfe as
laughter," but retained to the last that frank, almost boyish
gayety which rendered his society so attractive to the young.
Even when physical suffering and languor checked the spark-
ling flow of his animal spirits, it only required the lightest
touch to set them in motion, and make him break out into
some ebullition of fun or espieglerie.

" Few knew better how to clothe a rebuke in a witty repartie, as once, for
instance, during this very tour in Brittany. He happened to be travelling in
the diligence with a young soldier, who was annoying a modest-looking girl
by his forward attentions ; Ozanam said something about chivalry being the
first duty of a soldier, upon which the aggressor bade him mind his own con-
cerns, adding that it was no business of his to lecture people. ' You are mis-

• Sobriquet given during the Revolution to the cause of the royalists of La Vendee.

Life and Works of Fralerk Ozanam. 259

taken my friend ; that is precisely my business,' retorted Ozanam : ' I am
paid by the Stale for lecturing you.' "

This Breton journey would seem to have furnished innu-
merable opportunities for fun of one kind or another. The
memory of one of them survives in the shape of a burlesque
poem addressed to M. Ampere, who was to have joined the
tourists, but played false to the rendezvous, and went off on
a scientific mission instead. Tiie verses are bright and clever
in themselves, but they sounded uiimitaule when Ozanam
suddenly burst out with them, as if to relieve the vehemence
of his indignation, while the party were driving through the
lovely landscape round their host's the Vicomte de la Ville-
marque's property. It still provokes the laughter of those
who remember the force and manner of the improvisatore as
he uttered the opening lines, furiously emphasizing the last
word:

'•' Tandis qu'eufourchant I'hippogriffe,
Vous courez apres I'hieroglyphe,
Qu'un diable ecrivit de sa griffe
Sur quelque obelisque apocryphe,
Notre amiiie s'en ebouriffe,
Et demande que Ton vous biffe
Du livre des preux chevaliers." *

His fury, however, quickly subsided into a milder tone, and
he informs the truant that " little Marie is in excellent health,
growing hke a little flower"; that she is beginning to read,
and, if the absentee delays much longer, " she will write to
him." The threat apparently did not terrify the traveller to the
desired effect, for, in the February of the next year (185 1), we
hear Ozanam still sending forth appeals to him to come home
and leave the Neapolitans to the enjoyment of their " cloud-
less sky, and their blue sea, and their volcano, so admirably
placed with a view to the picturesque. . . . Don't allow your-
self to be kept away by the accounts that reach you of our
agitations and dangers," he says ; " there are riots in the As-
sembly and excitement in \}ntsalo}is, but the streets are perfect

* See p. 300, Letters, vol. ii.

26o Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

ly quiet. Affairs are quietly drifting into the road of proroga-
tion. It is not heroic, but it is convenient; it is provisional;
it enables one to postpone the evil day — I'heure des coups dt
fusil. Honest republicans see in it a means of accustoming
the country to the name of republic, and of preserving at least
a slender remnant of universal suffrage.

" The Orleanists think it gives the Comte de Paris lime to attain his ma-
jority.

" I say nothing of the Bonapartists, who have the upper hand. There re-
main, therefore, only the Legitimists and the Socialists, two parties out of
five, to oppose the prorogation, and I don't believe they are powerful enough.
You see that I am not alarmed, and that 1 keep to your school, which is no
small merit in the pupil when the master is no longer there. Amongst the
benefits you have conferred on me since I have had the joy of knowing you, 1
reckon that of having reassured me in 1848, when everybody was terrified, and
having taught me never to despair."

And yet there were moments when the temptation to de-
spair was strong, when Ozanam was obliged to gather up all
the promises of faith and grasp them passionately, in order
that hope might not fail him.

" See ! " he exclaims to M. Tomaseo, " see how far the great lesson of 1S48
is from having taught men anything. There they are, one after another,
making it a point of honor to declare before heaven and earth that they were
never mistaken, and that these momentous events have taught them nothing,
and upbraided them with nothing. There they are at their old hatreds again,
busy with their petty every-day passions, and fallen back into the old laziness
that makes them fly from everything like a novelty, doing their utmost, in
fact, to force Divine Providence to strike a second and a hea\ner blow. I have
only one hope, but it is a grand one. It is that, in the midst of the political
decomposition of society, Christianity is being more firmly rooted, and that
the faith has never manifested itself more vigorously than during this year.
The multitude, not knowing to whom to go, has turned to the onlv Master
who has the words of eternal life. Ah ! France is truly the Samaritan woman
of the Gospel ; she has gone many times to drink at fountains that could not
quench her thirst ; she will at last attach herself to Him who promises her the
living water, so that she may never more thirst.

"I know not how Europe is to be reconstituted. It is evident that the
dreams of parties have vanished, but what one cannot fail to recognize is that
the idea which civilized the barbarians is still moving the chaos of our own
days. Opinions stand armed, and are on the eve of a struggle, but there are
Christians in every camp. God scatters us under hostile flags, so that there

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 261

may not be in this society, all broken up into parties, a single faction where a
few at lecist shall not invoke and bless God the Saviour !"

There never was a time, or at least there never had been
then, when this division was more complete, when parlies
were more numerous, more violent and implacable. Ozanam
looked out over the scene with the anxious, pondering gaze
of a man too earnest in his patriotism to shake off his own
share of responsibility in the general account. While God
was teaching the nation this tremendous lesson, it behoved
every man to listen and learn.

" Let us learn, above all, to defend our convictions," he says, "but without
hating our adversaries ; let us learn to love those who think differently from
us, to admit that there are Christians in every camp, and that God can be
served to-day cis ever. Let us complain less of the times, and more of our-
selves ; let us be less faint-hearted, let us be worthier."

He refrained as much as possible from discussing poUtics,
becaii-t.' it was such misery to him to see the low level on
which iin) were placed; to see them so misunderstood by
those wiu), unlike him, believed it their mission to lead and
direct them.

"WTien I see " he savs, "the monarchical parties, whose fusion was, by the
way to restore French society, let loose so cruelly, and the Orleanists them-
selves so divided that their recriminations have been filling the columns of
twenty newspapers this fortnight past-when I see all this I should like to be-
lieve in the duration of the RepubHc, above all, for the good of religion and
the salvation of the Church of France, which would be so terribly compromised
if events threw into power a party ready to recommence all the errors of Re-
storation . We have not faith enough ; we are always looking for

the re-establishment of religion by political means; we dream of a Constan-
tine who, with one blow and one effort, would bring back the nations to the
fold The fact is. we don't reallv know the history of Constantine-how he
became Christian preciselv because half the world was already Christian-how
the crowd of sceptics, scoffers, and courtiers who thronged after him mto the
Church only brought with them hypocrisy, scandal, and relaxation. No ; it is
not laws, but morals, that make conversions consciences must be laid siege
to one by one. Look at those two great examples, Paris and Geneva, two
cities where, from 1830 to 1848, not a single law was enacted in favor of Ca-
tholicism, and v.here the conversion of souls has been accomplished with a
strength and perseverance that have astonished ever}' one. Look at the United
States, look at England. Faith only flourishes where it finds a hostile or a

262 Life and Works of Ficderic Ozanam.

foreign government. We must not ask God to send us bad governments, but
we must not try to give ourselves a government that will relieve us of out
duties by taking on itself a mission for the souls of our brothers which God
has not confided to it. Unicuiqiie mandavit Deus de proximo ftto. Let us
continue and extend personal proselytism, but let us abjure and abhor the
sloth and cowardliness that would prompt us to call to our aid the proselytism
of the State."

Tlie nobler kind of proselytism was being carried on gene-
rously, and with fruitful results, in many quarters. Pere La-
cordaire was drawing the best intellect of Paris to his feet
during the Lenten Conferences, which he had resumed at
Notre Dame. Ozanam alludes to the closing one as " an
event in the ecclesiastical history of our times." The subject
was the number of the elect. To the Gallican opinion on this
subject, Lacordaire opposed the more consoling doctrine of
the older divines as to the probable salvation of the greater
number, and, says Ozanam,

" He protested warmly against those men of despair who see around them
nothing but evil and damnation. In language more eloquent than any I ever
heard, even from him, he proclaimed the mercies of God in favor of those who
work and suffer ; that is to say, in favor of far the greater number. And when
he commented on the text, ' Blessed are the poor !' the charity that overflowed
on his lips and beamed in his whole person threw him into one of those trans-
ports that one reads of in the lives of the saints. The thousands who thrilled
to his voice under the vaulted roof of Notre Dame asked themselves whether
they were listening to an angel or to a man."

This year was a peaceful and happy one to Ozanam,
although his health was still a source of suffering and anxiety,
and rendered his professional duties oftentimes a burden be-
yond his strength. " Providence is treating us this year
with great tenderness, like weak Christians who require indul-
gence," he says ; and later on he declares that, in spite of
grave cares in the future, and much suffering in the present, he
is " as happy as it is possible to be here below."

He had hired a country house at Sceaux, near Paris, where
his friend Ampere came to spend some days in every week
with him. The latter recalls these peaceful visits in a few
touching lines :

Life and Wif ks of hrederic Ozanam. 263

" It was durinj;; the summer of 1851, seated on a bench, which I can see now
in his little garden at Sceaux, where he had gone to seek a little rest witli his
wife and child, that Ozanam, already worn out, read to me his description of
paganism. They were the last serene days of our friendship, the last whose
sweetness was not poisoned by the anxiety we were obliged to hide from
him."

Perhaps the shadow of the parting was already upon them,
though they knew it not, and made these days of intercourse
seem doubly sweet. Ozanam relished them with a fulness oi
enjoyment that he had seldom before experienced

'J'he two friends worked diligently all the morning, then in
the afternoon followed endless walks and conversations, and
in the evening M. Ampere would cliarm his liosts by some
pages from the MS. of his historical novel Hilda^ which had
already had the triimiph of Mme. Recamier's and Chateau-
briand's applause ai tiie soirees of the Abbaye-aux-Bois. The
two mvants presented as perfect a type of manly friendship as
any we can recall , it had kept all the promises of early
youth, and now, in its maturity, preserved the bloom and
enthusiasm of its dawn. They had no secrets from one
another; there was only one point in which their union was
not perfect ; but it was the essential one, and Ozanam could
never refer to it without a pang. The fire of doubt, as he
had called it, which had passed over his own soul, leaving it
purified and strengthened, had wrought differently in the
noble soul of Ampere ; he had lost the faith he had inherited
from his father, and which that illustrious man had practised
with the dociUty of a little child all his life. But che son was
ill at ease in his unbelief; his heart yearned after the lost
treasure ; nothing filled up the void, neither the adulation of
society, nor fame, nor science, nor the prodigious resources of
his rich, fantastic imagination ; his cup of Jife was seemingly
full to overflowing, but it wanted the one thing which can
satisfy the infinite capacity of the human soul — the knowledge
of God, the certainty of an immortal destiny. It was not
likely that Ozanam could come into close contact with this
want and not do his utmost to supply it. A quotation from

264 Life and IVorks of Frederic Ozanam.

one of his letters to Ampere will suffice to show how faith,
fuily and tenderly he strove to render this service to his
friend; it was written immediately after the latter had parted
from him to embark on a long and perilous voyage

"... How can you wonder at my sadness in taking leave of you ?
. . , 1 could not tell you the cause of this sadness : I could not speak of
it, because I did not wish to compel you to answer me, and if I write about -t
now it is because it is too late for you to reply. If what I am going to say is
indiscreet, the waves that are bearing you to America will carrj- away the
memory of it, new impressions will efface it, and when we meet six months
hence you wiL have had time to forget what may have pained you in my
letter.

"Dear friend, you are continually starting on long and fatiguing journeys
that are not without danger lo your health, already so severely tried. Bear,
then, with my anxiety. You say you are seeking to create new sources of in
terest for yourself, and, with that great intellect that God has give-i you, you
dive into every jcience, and now you are making the tour of half the world to
find some novelty that may furnish a fresh interest. And yet there is a su-
preme interest^ a good capable above all others of attaching and satisfying
your noble heart; and I fear — forgive me my friend, if 1 wrong you — I fear
that you do not think of it sufficiently You are a Christian by birth, by the
blood of your incomparable father ; you fulfil all the duties of Christianity
towards men ; but are there not others to be fulfilled towards God ? Must we
not serve Him, and live in close intercourse with Him i" Would you not find
this intercourse a source of infinite consolation ? Would you not find there
security for eternity ?

" You have more than once allowed me to surmise that these thoughts
were not foreign to your heart. Your studies have brought you into com-
munication with many great Christians ; you have seen many eminent men
around you end their lives in the Christian religion ; these examples invite
you, but you are arrested by the difficulties of the faith. Dear and excellent
friend, I have never discussed these difficulties with you, because you have in-
finitely more knowledge and intellect than I have. But let me tell you, never-
theless, there are but two things, Religion and Philosophy. Philosophy has
lights; it has known God, but it does not love Him ; it has never called forth
one of those tears of love that a Catholic sheds at the moment of Communion,
and whose incomparable sweetness is worth, in itself alone, the sacrifice of an
entire life. If I, who am so weak and bad, have experienced this sweetness
what would it not be with you, whose nature is so elevated and whose heart
is so good ! You would find there that internal evidence before which every
doubt vanishes. Faith is an act of virtue, consequently an act of the will.
We must, once for all, ivill^ we must give our soul to God, and then He gives
us the fulness of light.

" Ah ! if some day you fell ill in a distant city of America, without a friend
by your bedside, remember that there is not a town of any importance m

Life arid Works of Frederic Ozatiam. 265

the United States where the love of Jesus Christ has not gTiided a priest to
console the Catholic traveller. ..."

This appeal met with a frank response. Ampere promised
that he would pray for this fulness of light, and seek it perse-
veringly. Fifteen years after the date of the above letter he
wrote to one who had his confidence and Ozanara's : " I will
persevere honestly in seeking for the truth ; no one longs for
it more sincerely than I do, and every night of my life I send
up to God the prayer, Give me light.'" The prayer was
heard, but only when death came and drew aside the veil
which had hung between the soul of Ampere and the light of
eternal truth and mercy.

The famous Exhibition of the Crystal Palace was drawing
all the nations of the earth to London in the summer of 1851,
and Ozanam allowed himself to be persuaded by Ampere into
falling in with the stream of visitors He and Madame
Ozanam set off, with this indefatigable traveller for cicerone,
in the first week of August. The wonders of the great com-
mercial city, with its wealth and solid prosperity, were not
much calculated to awaken the enthusiasm of the poet-mind
which had been inspired by the legends of St. Francis and the
wild beauties of his native hills. Ozanam was astounded and
overpowered by London rather than charmed. He describes
it as

" The most imposing city in the world, when, through the mist which en-
velops and magnifies it, you first catch sight of the semicircle on the banks of
the Thames, with its forest of steeples, columns, porticos, and, towering above
them all, the dome of St. Paul's. But when you come nearer and examine
these monuments, all black and disproportioned, you find they are nothing
but a failure— the failure of riches to procure what gold cannot buy, to trans-
plant to an ungrateful soil the inspirations of Italy and France. In the midst
of these wretched imitations there are, however, two striking exceptions,
Westminster Abbey and the new Houses of Parliament. . . . As to the
Exhibition, nothing can be finer than the order in which the infinite variety of
human riches has been collected together in one edifice. Savants are delighted
with the marvels already wrought by machinery, and those still greater that
it promises ; but if we except the Chinese and Indian departments, I am quite
disenchanted by the monotonous uniformity in which material civilization
threatens to envelop the whole world. . . . This Exhibition includes

266 Life and Works of Frederic Ozaiiam.

nothing but articles of luxury, things which the wealthy classes alone want
and pay for. The fictitious wants of this class are the same all over the
world ; a set of diamonds destined for the Queen of Spain is the exact twin of
one that is to deck the Empress of Russia. God made the earth with an end-
less variety that was pleasant to the eyes ; industry threatens to cover it with
a uniformity that will engender disgust and weariness. For my part, after
beholding this epitome of human power at the end of nearly sixty centuries,
I said to myself, 'What! can man do no more than this? The supreme
effort of his genius is to cross silk with gold, to mix emerald leaves with
diamond flowers ! ' And I went out and was glad to see the greensward of
the Park, the groups of noble trees with the sheep grazing under their shade,
and all those things that industry had not made."

The true exhibition, the one which, in his opinion, gave
the most accurate impression of England's power and wealth,
was not the industrial collection of the fairy edifice on the
Serpentine, but the Docks, where her commerce keeps its
treasury.

"Above the bridges there is a city of luxury, a great capital, where foreign-
ers throng in delight ; but below the bridges, going down the Thames, there
exists a second city of London, which is the life of the first. This one has no
monuments but her vessels, whose masts, closer and more stately than all the
colonnades above, carry the British flag to the most distant latitudes. This
one has a tunnel where you walk under the river without hearing even the
murmur of its waters. This one has docks, those huge basins where twenty-
five thousand ships find shelter. All round rise countless warehouses. We
wandered through them for hours, through streets composed entirely of boxes
of tea, of sugar, of bales of Australian w-ool. Below, lamp in hand, we ex-
plored those gigantic cellars where the vintages of Spain and Portugal lie
buried — regular catacombs, but catacombs of Mammon, flanked not with
tombs, but with barrels worth their weight in gold. This is the real exhibi-
tion, and one morning spent in these opulent gloomy regions struck and im-
pressed us far more than the elegant galleries of the Crystal Palace."

There was something almost terrifying to Ozanam in this
tremendous accumulation of wealth. While admitting the
necessity for its pursuit in legitimate trade, and the advanta-
ges accruing from the progress of industry, he could not di-
vest himself of the feeling tliat, carried beyond a certain
point, the result had in it "something dangerous, something
of the tempter, something Satanic," and tliat it was impossi-
ble to display those dazzling treasures before the eyes of men,

Life a)id Works of Frederic Ozamun. 267

already too enamored of the goods of this world, without
detriment to their desires of a nobler gain.

"I always seemed to see standing on the threshold of the Exhibition," he
says, " the same demon who transported our Saviour to the top of the moun-
tain, and to hear him saying again, ' All this will I give thee if thou wilt fall
down and worship me.' It looks to me like a seal of reprobation on these
riches that they do not serve to ameliorate the lot of humanity, the lot, that is,
of the greater number, and that the most opulent city in the world is also that
which treats its poor most harshly."

The extent of that national and crying disgrace of Eng-
land, Pauperism, presented indeed a painful contrast with tliis
colossal wealth. Ozanam had seen poverty, la misere, both in
Paris and at Lyons, but it was during a period of coma follow-
ing upon revolution, and was explained, at least in its extreme
state, by the convulsion which had brought labor of every
description to a standstill. Here, however, there was no
such fact to justify the horrible excess of pauperism which
disfigured the rich metropolis. What vice was there in the
system to account for it ?

" Why is London overrun with beggars, half-naked, who pursue the stran-
ger, rushing under the very wheels of the carriages, and bearing on their
countenances the traces of an inexorable despair ? The poor-law and the
workhouse cannot deal with the evil. The English cannot prevent mendici-
ty from penetrating into London ; they tolerate it, and I give them credit for
doing so. But why then do they insult so derisively the mendicity of Catho-
lic countries ? Never in the streets of Rome did I see anything approaching
to those women in rags who hold out their hand to you along the Strand ; to
those little girls that one sees in a frock tattered up to their waist, with their
naked feet in the cold black mud. And let it not be alleged that this is a dis-
play of misery got up to move the passers-by. Penetrate, I don't say even into
the poor districts of Whitechapel or Southwark, but to the back of those sump-
tuous thoroughfares. Regent Street and Oxford Street, and you will find nar-
row little alleys, dark and foul, which lead into courts still narrower, hedged
in with high houses. Here the beggars congregate ; they are lodged by the
week ; a room costs, on an average, from three to four shillings a week — that
is to say, from two hundred to two hundred and fifty francs a year. Many
families are too poor to bear alone the burden of such a rent, so they unite to
share and lighten it, and thus lose the satisfaction which the most wretched
menaces enjoy with us, that of being all to themselves {chez sot). I saw one
room and a narrow closet that was inhabited by fourteen persons. For some
time past the police regulations have forbidden them to lodge in cellars ; but

268 Lije and Works of Frederic Ozanarn.

distress, which is stronger than all other authorities, drives many workmen to
seek this last refuge. ..."

These wretched haunts had a stronger attraction for Oza-
narn than any other sight in London.

" Better than I," says M. Ampere, " he would leave me to return alone to
the Crvstal Palace, that he might have more time to visit the cellars and gar-
rets inhabited by the poor of Catholic Ireland ; he would come away from
them with his heart full, cind always, I suspect, a little poorer than he went."

Few of the monuments of London found favor with Oza-
narn. St. Paul's he speaks of as an

" Icy edifice which even Catholicism would have something to do to warm
up," supposing M. de Maistre's prophecy were realized, and that the nine-
teenth century saw Mass celebrated there. " The true basilica of London, the
St. Denis of the English monarchy, is Westminster," he says. "There a
stately nave rises up to rival our noblest naves of St. Ouen and Amiens. . . .
The Christian architects who erected this church made it long and wide to
contain the multitude of a faithful people, high and aerial to waft the ho-
mage of earth nearer to God. Behind the choir and the high altar only, a
partition contained a narrow space where the shrine of St. Edward was
placed. A tomb of stone, adorned with mosaics, was the resting-place of the
holy king's remains, the popular king who represented the historical souve-
nirs of the Anglo-Saxon nationality. The Norman princes never dreamed of
disturbing the peace of this sanctuary ; all their ambition was to rest near St.
Edward. All round the shrine you see the sepulchres of Henry III., Ed-
ward III., Richard II., and behind these Henry VII. built a chapel which is
the pearl of England. But Protestantism having banished God from this
church, and being no longer able to fill it with a living people, imagined the
device of encumbering it with the dead. . . . There is what is called the
Poets' Corner and the Statesmen's Corner ; but the Dean and Chapter
of Westminster, in virtue of some arbitrary power, can, itseems, cede to
those who were only rich the right to figure amongst the great. Hence the
prodigious collection of mausoleums devoid of historical interest or monu-
mental merit. . , . Not satisfied with decorating the walls, they ha*e closed
up entire arcades by piling up these monuments of vanity and bad taste."

Pere Lacordaire, in his notice of Ozanam, relates a char-
acteristic incident connected with his first visit to the Abbey.

" He went in with the crowd of strangers and foreigners, and found him-
self presently behind the clioir, in front of the tomb of St. Edward. The
sight of this monument, mutilated by Protestantism, filled him with anguish,
and falling on his knees before the relics, such as they are, of the St. Louis of
England, he prayed there alone in expiation for that people that no longer
knows its saints, to the great contempt doubtless of the lookers-on, who took
him for an idolater, if not for a madman,"

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 269

We are not surprised to learn that the indignant beadle
hunted him out of the church. Ozanam beheld with grati-
tude and hope the progress of the faith in the midst of this
people where it had once been so flourishing.

"Everyday numbers new conversions," he says; "and the example of
those two grand souls, Newman and Manning, continues to move the hearts
of the most religious of the Anglican clergy. Nothing is more touching than
to see that fine church, St. George's Cathedral, just now threatened, but so
full of hope, a glorious witness to the increase of Catholics, grown too nume-
rous to be contained in the obscure chapels to which persecution had so long
consigned them. Nothing can exceed the recollection and fervor of the faith-
ful there at the divine offices ; the communions are very numerous ; that most
eloquent prelate, Cardinal Wiseman, here addresses English Catholics in the
long-forgotten language of St. Anselm and St. Thomas of Canterbury, while
round him are gathered a group of zealous priests and laymen, who reminded
me of your church at Gene%'a,* less cf)nsiderable but not less flourishing.
Both prove in an admirable manner that Catholicism has no need of the secu-
lar arm to achieve the conquest of consciences. And this reminds me, my
dear friend, just now, that it is so all-important to the oppressed churches of
England, Switzerland, Germany, and Poland to vindicate the principle of
civil liberty. I entreat you to prevent your excellent journal from constituting
itself the ally of those who combat this principle in France and Italy. We
have to choose between liberty for our opponents and chains for our brothers."

Though Ozanam was in antagonism with English institu-
tions in their religious bearing, he found much to admire in
the national character and customs.

" There is no denying the fine qualities of the people," he says : " they are
full of respect for the law and of love of their country ; they are indefatigable
in their industry, and they are religious too, if we may judge from the im-
mense number of church-steeples that soar above London, and still more
from the rest on Sunday, which is so strictly observed from one end of the
country to the other by the most work loving people in the universe. "

He is surprised and pained by the spirit of pride that
separates the classes, but rather amused by certain manifesta-
tions of it.

" I visited some poor districts in company with a member of the Society of
St. Vincent de Paul," he remarks, " and I was able to see what an amount of
virtue and courage an Englishman requires in order to come personally to the
assistance of this fearful misery ; not that they are grudging of their money,

* Letter to Mt Dufresne, ii, p. 378,

270 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

but in this aristocratic land the contact of indigence defiles and compromises.
Why, a shopman does not give you your change without folding it in a bit of
paper ! How then could a gentleman bring himself to press the hand of an
Irish beggar ? Our con/rh-es of St. Vincent de Paul have, nevertheless, been
enabled to overcome the prejudices of their birth ; they do a great deal of
good, and it was a joy to me to pass an evening in the midst of them."

Ozanam was not sorry to escape for a day from the " sad-
ness of the great city of fogs and smoke, with its ill-hghted
monuments," to the -serener atmosphere of Oxford. There
all seemed to him " steeped in peace " ; and he was enchanted
with the old city of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,

"With its noble colleges of Gothic architecture or in the style of the
Renaissance. One wanders through their vast cloisters, their fine gardens,
where there is nothmg to remind you of the difference of centuries. The col-
leges of Christ's Church and St. Magdalen charmed us above all, and we were
seriously tempted to take up our abode there ; for though celibacy is the rule
in these communities, there is an exception in favor of the canons of Christ's
Church. I was much interested also in the Bodleian library. Mind and tell
Daremberg that his friend Mr. Coxe gave us a most gracious welcome. He
showed us the celebrated .Xrundel marbles, and took us over the University ;
he charmed us by that mixture of science, urbanity, and «a?r^/^ which renders
him the worthy inhabitant of this venerable place,"

The journey to England did not, on the whole, produce
any decided improvement in the traveller's health. It rested
and amused him, but he returned to his little country house
at Sceaux no better, radically, than when he had left it. At
the end of October he writes to M. Ampere, still absent in
America : " I work a little, but with difficulty ; I cover a page
while you are flying over fifty leagues. I find, nevertheless,,
a certain benefit in the mere repose of the country, in this
sojourn at Sceaux, where the leaves are departing, but whence
peace departs not. From the window where I write I hear
the merry voice of my little Marie, playing in the garden ;
and Amelie, seated close by, rejoices me by her look of
health. . . ." The belief that his own health was vitally im-
paired was now close upon him, but he met it with courage
and resignation ; his only regret, as far as he considered him-
self personally, was that he had achieved so little, and was

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 271

likely to be called away at the moment when the labors of his
life might have been rendered useful in some worthier and
more permanent form. But even in his most intimate corre-
spondence he avoided dwelling on this subject; he would say
just enough to satisfy the claims of friendly anxiety, and then
turn to more cheerful topics. This did not cost him any
extraordinary effort; he retained to the la^t the charming
faculty of being interested in everythmg, great and small, that
came within his observation. M. Ampere's tour in the United
States was just now a source of the liveliest interest to him,
although he had been so averse to his friend's embarking on
the expedition.

" When I so strenuously opposed your Transatlantic voyage," he says, " I
was only actuated by the egotism of friendship ; don't fancy that I am an
enemy to the Yankees, and don't, I implore of you, get me into anj' sort of
trouble with that great people. They will probably realize the political ideal
to which, in my opinion, modern society is tending. All that you tell me of
Quebec and Montreal touches me deeply ; above all, the joy you had in find-
ing the name of your illustrious father still living there. I am delighted to
see you seated at the family banquet of our brothers beyond the ocean. But
don't suppose me indifferent to the good luck you had in coming in time for
the festivities of Boston. I am far from making small account of the speeches
of the President of the United States, and very far from despising those pro-
cessions of workingmen of which the calm and well- disciplined democracy of
America gives us the spectacle. They are better than our armed bands of
Cher and Nievre. Keep your eyes wide open, observe ever}-thing, and you
will come back very opportunely in 1852 ; for, to speak out quite plainly, 1852
has begun this last fortnight, and affairs begin to be nicely complicated. Even
if you wait till the month of April, I don't guarantee that you will find your
fauteuil at the Academy ; it may have gone to boil the soup of the insur-
gents ! Happy mortal ! you will not see the smoke of our conflagrations ; you
will be yonder, on those peaceful shores, ready to receive your fugitive
friends ; you will patronize Madame Ozanam, and help her to set up a flower-
stall in Broadway. As to me, my stock of English would not enable me to
exercise my small talents of barrister and professor, so 1 see no career open to
me but to beat the big drum behind my brother's carriage when he goes driv-
ing about to pull out teeth. And this is to be the finale of the Ozanam family,
that had seemed to promise such great things ! , . .

"Adieu, my friend ; may the wjnds fill your sails in the right direction ; let
them blow you whither they will, they will never carrj' you to a corner of the
earth where our thoughts do not follow you. Even our little Marie is au
courant of your peregrinations ; you are teaching her geography, and she now
knows about America as the country where M. Ampere is tra%'elling. "

CHAPTER XXIV.

1852.

Before the advent of the month of April, which was to see
Ampere's academical arm-chair kindling the pot-fires of the
Revolution, Ozanam was once more dangerously ill. He had
carried on his cours through the winter without interruption,
and with the usual success, but towards Easter his strength
broke down. He was seized with a pleurisy which placed his
life in immediate danger. During tlie course of this illness,
and while he was a prey to a burning fever, he found strength,
nevertheless, inspired by his ardent faith, which might truly
now be called the ruling passion strong in death, to write the
following letter to a friend whose faith had been shipwrecked
in the study of profane science. The ostensible pretext for
the letter was the misfortune of an old schoolfellow of theirs
who had been recently struck with blindness. Ozanam in-
forms M. H. that their poor friend has no alternative but to
get admittance to the Hospital of Incurables, and that. he
accepts his fate with the most heroic resignation :

"You have been kind and generous to our old comrade," adds the writer,
"and he is grateful and will pray for you. And I. too, unworthy as I am, I
will pray for you, since you wish it. Oh ! what touching memories that word
brings back to me. The sweetness of that Christmas night, those conversa-
tions with you and Lallier when, young and in love with nothing but truth,
we conversed together on eternal things. Let me speak out, my friend. . . .
\\Tio knows ? Perhaps the moment is come to do so. You have sought, in
the sincerity of your heart, to solve your difficulties, and you have not suc-
ceeded ; but, my dear friend, the difficulties of religion are like those of science
— there are always some that remain. It is a great thing to settle a few of
them ; no single life would suffice to exhaust them all. To decide all the
questions that may arise about the Scriptures, one should know thoroughly all
the Oriental languages. To answer all the objections of Prof^stants, one
would require to study the history of the Church in its minutest details, or

272

Life and Works of Frederic Ozajiam. 273

rather the universal history of modern limes. You never could, therefore,
occupied as you are in other ways, answer all the doubts that your active and
mgenious imagination is for ever evoking for the greater torment of your
heart and miiid. Fortunately God has not put certainty at such a price.
What, then, are we to do ? We are to do in religion as we do in science —
satisfy ourselves of the proofs of a given number of truths, and then abandon
the rest to the investigation of the learned. I believe firmly that the earth
goes round. I know, nevertheless, that this doctrine has its difficulties, but
astronomers explain them, and, if they don't explain them all, the future will
do the rest. So it is with the Bible ; it is beset with difficult questions. Some
have been solved long ago ; others, hitherto considered insoluble, have been
answered in our own day ; there remain still many to be solved, but God per-
mits this to keep the human mind on the alert, and to exercise the activity of
future ages.

" No ! God cannot exact that religious truth, that is to say, the essential
food of every soul, should be the fruit of a long research, impossible to the
great numb>er of the ignorant, and difficult to the most learned. Truth must
be within reach of the lowliest, and religion must rest upon evidence accessible
to the most insignificant.

" For my own part, after experiencing many doubts, after having drenched
my pillow many and many a night with tears of despair, I rested my faith
upon an argument which any mason or coal-heaver may take hold of. I said
to myself that since every people have a religion, good or bad, it is clear that
religion is a universal, perpetual, and, consequently, legitimate want of hu-
manity. God, who created this want, has consequently pledged Himself to
satisfy it ; there must, therefore, be a true religion. Now, amongst the
multitude of creeds that divide the world, without going into the study or
discussion of facts, who can doubt but that Christianity is supremely prefera-
ble, and the only one that leads man to his moral destiny ? But again, ia
Christianity there are three Churches— the Protestant, the Greek, and the
Catholic — that is to say, anarchy, despotism, and order. The choice is not
difficult, and the truth of Catholicism requires no other demonstration.

•' This, my dear friend, is the brief chain of reasoning which opened to me
the doors of the faith. But once entered in, I was suddenly illuminated with
a new flood of light, and much more deeply convinced of the internal evi-
dences of Christianity. By this 1 mean the daily experience which enables
me to find in the faith of my childhood all the strength and light of my ma-
ture manhood, the sanctification of my domestic joys, the solace of all my
troubles. If the whole earth were to abjure Christ, there is in the unuttera-
ble sweetness of one communion, in the sweet tears that it gives rise to, a
force of conviction that would suffice to make me cling to the Cross and defy
the unbelief of the whole world. But 1 am far from such a trial, and, on the
contrary, how powerful amongst men is the action of this faith in Christ,
which is represented as dead ! You do not know, perhaps, to what an ex-
tent the Saviour of the world is still loved, the virtues that He still evokes, the
self-sacrifices, equal to the early ages of the Church, that He still inspires ! I
need only point to the young priests that I see starting from the Seminary of

2 74 Life and ]\'orks of Frederic Ozanam.

Foreign Missions to go and die at Tonquin, as St. Cyprian and St. Irene did ;
to those converted Anglican ministers who give up splendid incomes to come
to Paris to try and get bread for their wives and children by giving lessons.
No! Catholicism is not bereft of heroism in the days of Monseigneur Affre,
nor of eloquence in the days of Lacordaire, nor of any kind of glory or
authority in an age which has seen Napoleon, Royer Collard, and Chateau-
briand die Christians !

" Independently of this internal evidence, I have been for the last ten years
studying the history of Christianity, and every step I take in this direction
strengthens my convictions. I read the Fathers, and I am filled with delight
by the moral beauties they unfold to me, the philosophical lights with which
they dazzle me. I plunge into the barbarous ages, and I see the wisdom of
the Church and her magnanimity, I do not deny the disorders of the
Middle Ages, but I have convinced myself that Catholic truth struggled single-
handed against the evil, and evolved out of this chaos those prodigies of virtue
and genius which we icimire. I am passionately enamored of the legitimate
conquests of the modern mind ; I love liberty, and I have served it, and 1
believe that it is to the Gospel that we owe liberty, equality, and fraternity.
I have had leisure and opportunity to study all these problems, and so they
were made clear to me. But I did not want this ; and if other duties had
hindered me from those historical researches in which I found such intense
interest, I should have reasoned about them as I do about exegetical studies,
whose access is closed to me. I believe in the truth of Christianity ; conse-
quently, if there be any objections, I believe that sooner or later they will be
explained. I believe even that some may never be explained, because Christi-
anity treats of the relations of the finite with the infinite, and that we shall never
understand the infinite. All that my reason has a right toexact is that I should
not compel it to believe in the absurd. Now, there can be no philosophical
absurdity in a religion which satisfied the intelligence of Descartes and
Bossuet, nor any moral absurdity in a creed which sanctified St. Vincent de
.Paul, nor any philological absurdity in an interpretation of Scriptures which
satisfied the vigorous mind of Sylvestre de Sacy. Certain men of modem
times cannot bear the dogma of eternal punishment ; they consider it in-
human. Do they fancy they love humanity more, and that they have a finer
perception of the just and the unjust, than St. Aucrustine, St. Thomas
Aquinas, St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Francis of Sales ? It is not because
they love humanity more ; it is because they have a less lively sense of the
horror of sin and the justice of God ! Oh ! my dear friend, let us not waste
our time in endless discussions. We have not two lives, one to search out
the truth, and the other to practise it. This is why God does not need to be
searched after. He reveals Himself in this living Christian society which sur-
rounds you ; He is before your eyes ; He urges you. . . . You will soon be
forty years of age ; it is time you decided. Yield to the Saviour, who is en-
treating you ; give yourself up to Him as your friends have done ; you will
then find peace. Your doubts will vanish as mine vanished. You want so
little to be an excellent Christian ! you want nothing but one act of the will ;
to believe is to will. Will once for all ; ivill at the feet of a priest, who will

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 275

call down the sanction of Heaven on your trembling act. Have but this
courage, my friend, and the faith that you so admire in poor L., and which
supports him under so great a misfortune, will add its untold sweetness to
your prosperity. "

The courage which enabled Ozanam to write this long
appeal from his sick-bed was soon after rewarded ; before he
died he had the happiness of knowing that his friend had re-
turned to the faith.

The most grievous trial of illness to Ozanam was the inac-
tivity which it enforced. He had continued to lecture regu-
larly at the Sorbonne long after he should have ceased in
sheer mercy to himself; but to the medical men and friends
who entreated him to give it u[), he would reply, " I must do
ray day's work " : " // ftuit fairs ma journe'e." He continued
to do it as long as he could gather up a remnant of strength
to drag himself to his chair. But the day was spent now,
and the faithful laborer was soon to receive his reward.

He was still confined to his bed, suffering great pain, and
consumed with fever, when one day he heard that the public
were clamoring for him at the Sorbonne, accusing him of
self-indulgence and neglect of duty in being so long absent
from his cours, wlien he was paid by the S'.ate for giving it.
The news slung him to the quick. " I will show them it is
not true. I will do honor to my profession ! " he cried. And,
in spite of the tears of his wife and the entreaties of his
brother and another medical attendant, he had himself
dressed and drove straight to the Sorbonne, where he found
the crowd still collected outside his class. When the Professor,
leaning on the arm of a friend, pale, worn, more like a spectre
than a living man, advanced through their midst, the rioters
were smitten with horror and remorse; as he ascended the
chair that had witnessed so many of his triumphs, and that he
was never to ascend again, their applause broke forth, rising
and falling like waves around him. He stood for some
minutes gazing in silence on the thoughtless, cruel young
crowd, his black, dazzling eyes shining with the terrible light

276 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

of fever, his long hair hanging, his whole appearance that of
a man who was nearer to death than to life. When at last
the tumult subsided, he spoke. His voice rang out as clear
as silver, more piercing from its very weakness, like a spirit
imprisoned in a body too frail to bear the shock of its inspira-
tion.

"Gentlemen," he said, "our age is accused of being an age of egotism ;
we professors, it is said, are tainted with the general epidemic ; and yet it is
here that we use up our health ; it is here that we wear ourselves out. 1 do
not complain of it ; our life belongs to you ; we owe it to you to our last
breath, and you shall have it. For my part, if I die it will be in your ser-
vice !"

He said truly ; this last effort killed him. He gave the
lecture, speaking with an eloquence and power that startled
those who had heard him in his palmiest days. The enthu-
siasm of the audience rose at last to frenzy. Perhaps they felt
instinctively that human speech could go no higher, and that,
having now reached its apogee in Ozanam, they would never
hear his voice again. As he left the lecture-hall friends gath-
ered round him in delighted congratulation, and one pressing
his hand, exclaimed, " You were wonderful to-day !"

" Yes," replied Ozanam, with a smile, " but now the ques-
tion is, how to get some sleep to-night." And he got none.

The next day his brother came, and, sitting by the sick
man's bed, discovered, to his horror, that there was a princi-
ple of decomposition in the blood. " He may be dead in
ten days!" he said in a whisper to his eldest brother.

As soon as it was possible for him to be moved he was
taken to Eaux-Bonnes, in hopes that the waters might arrest,
at least for a time, the fatal progress of the disease. But the
hope was vain. He gained sufficient strength, however, to
enjoy the wild beauties of the scenery, to walk out every day,
and even " to climb up the rocks after the goats by way of
digesting these tumblerfuls of sulphurous water which I am
condemned to swallow between two mountains," he says to
M. de la Villemarque ; and adds, " I have all my clan with

Life and Woiks of Frederic Ozanam. 277

me, and when we shall have decamped from these altitudes,
we ^o on to Biarritz for sea-bathing ; and after that 1 am
condemned to exile in the south for the winter."

He derived so much benefit from the waters after a short
lime, that it at once struck him what a boon it would be to
tiie poor, attacked with his own malady, if tiiey could come
to Eaux-Bonnes ; and he forthwith set to work on a scheme
of buildmg or hiring a hospital, and creating a fund, through
the generosity and exertions of the Society of St. Vincent de
Paul, which should serve to defray the travelling expenses of
the invalids. He was not spared to carry out the plan, but
we understand that it has been revived of late, and is likely
to be realized. Meantime Ozanam took advantage of his
sojourn at Eaux-Bonnes to found a Conference. Another
consolation was granted him in the society of that beautiful
kindred soul, the Abbe Perreyve, who, like him whom he
called his " Master," was stricken by the hand of death, and
had come to seek relief in the salutary waters. Pere Lacor-
daire has quoted the pages, full of pathetic beauty, where the
young priest recalls these days of sweet and tender intercourse,
when the two friends wandered over the hills together, some-
times in silent soul-communion, listening to the song of birds
and the music of falling waters, sometimes conversing on
things human and Divine — on God, on Nature, on the life
beyond, to which they were approaching.

" WTien the sky was clear," says the Abbe Perreyve, " we would start earlj",
makings our way to one of those pleasant walks round Eaux-Bonnes, and the
remembrance of which is beautified to me now by that of his dear presence.
We often chose the Horizontal Promenade. There we enjoyed the evening
calm, and we came away when the sun, forsaking the purple heights of the
Pic du Gers, sent the fresh vapors of the valley of Laruns floating up to us.
When at the end of our walk we caught sight of the house-tops of Eaux-
Bonnes it was nightfall ; the hills stood out in sharp and sombre lines against
the still luminous sky ; the moon, emerging from the firs of the highest rocks,
rose silently, and breathings, regular as the slumbers of a child, lulled the
woods softly. At this hour, in this lovely spot, our souls ascended naturally
to God. We still conversed, but long intervals of silence seemed to warn U3
that it was the hour rather for prayer — that deep, unspoken prayer that words

27^ Life afid Works of Frederic Ozanam.

cannot articulate, and which consists only in being silent before God. O my
Lord ! O my Master ! I thank Thee for having granted me those hours."

Ozanam loo gave thanks for them. Indeed, it may be
said with truth that few men were ever more diligent in
thanksgiving than he was. " God evidently saw fit to give
nie a itw days longer, in order that I might become better :
may He be blessed for it !" he exclaims; " but is it His pur-
pose to restore my health, or to make me expiate my sins by
long sufferings ? I know nothing, except that I bless Him!
May He only grant me courage; let Him send me the suf-
fering that purifies ; and if I must carry a cross, may it be
that of the penitent thief!" Yet he was far from being with-
out hope of his recovery, although his chief aim was to ob-
tain perfect resignation to renounce it. He left Eaux-Bonnes
in September, and writes from Biarritz soon after his arrival
there :

"It would be g^-eat ingratitude towards Divine Providence not to hope. If
my convalescence dues not advance as rapidly as I might wish, it has allowed
me to make a pretty little tour in the Pyrenees with my wife. We visited,
with great enjoyment, these mountains, which, if they have not the stern
p;randeur of the Alps, are not wanting in a majesty of their own, tempered by
a peculiar grace. We must not look for many glaciers, and the eternal snows
only cover a few peaks ; but one is never tired admiring the beauty of the
lights upon the rocks, the graceful curve of the crests ; above all, the limpid,
noisy waters that bound along on every side. Even the Alps themselves have
nothing to compare with the circus of Savernia. Picture to yourself, not a
circus, but rather the vault of a cathedral, eighteen hundred feet high, covered
with snow, furrowed with cascades, whose white foam boils over rocks of the
most glowing colors ; the walls are, as it were, hewn perpendicularly ; when
the clouds float above them, they look like the draperies of the sanctuary ; and
if the sun shines, the radiant torch is not too brilliant to illuminate an edifice
that one would fancy had been commenced by the angels, and interrupted by
some fault of man's."

He was delighted with the population of the mountains,
with their antique faith and traditions, and their picturesque
costuiues that seem a guarantee for the primitive simplicity
of their manners. •' How," he asks, " can we impute our
modern corruption to these peasants who have preserved the

Life ami Works of Frederic Ozanam. 2-]^

tittle Basque cap of their fathers, with hair falhng to their
shoulders, and a scarlet vest set off by a beautiful white waist-
coat, a belt, short breeches, and gaiters ? "

They made a pilgrimage to Betharrara, a shrine of the fif-
teenth centur}', still much frequented, and where Our Lady is
venerated under the title of Notre Dame au Rameau d'or. A
golden branch was offered as an ex veto by a young girl who,
having fallen into the neighboring torrent, made a vow to
Our Lady, and at the same moment found under her hand a
branch, to which she clung. " I too," exclaims Ozanam,
" am clinging with all my might to the saving branch, to her
whom we call the comfort of the afflicted and the refuge of
sinners."

The Abbe Perreyve had gone on with Ozanam to Biarritz
after the usual season at Eaux-Bonnes ; but his cure being
considered sufficiently complete, he was allowed to return to
Paris, after some weeks of sea-air. The parting was a solemn
one, Ozanam insisted on accompanying his friend as far as
Bayonne, where the stage-coach awaited the traveller.

" It is an hour's drive from Biarritz to Bayonne,"' says the Abbe Perre)'^e,
continuing his short narrative ; ' ' this hour was the last I was ever to spend with
him on earth. Grni pvermitted him to have the presentiment of it. He con-
versed on the way upon gjave subjects concerning himself and me, and rela-
tive to general affairs, the state of the Church, the conduct we should obser%-e
in the present circumstances, and the hopes which the future held out. He
spKDke as if it were for the last time, and I listened religiously.

" WTien we reached the high-road of Spain, that pwint where the towers of
the cathedral of Bayonne became visible in the distance, he changed his tone ;
he told me he knew the hand of death was upon him, and that we should
doubtless never meet again.

" I shared all these fears, only with more hof)efulness — that is to say, with
more illusions — and I honestly tried to combat his sad forebodings. But he was
not to be shaken ; he sp>oke to me of his approaching death with an assurance
that bore down all my motives of hope ; and when our carriage drew up before
the coach that was to take me on to Paris, he grasped my hand in a long
pressure. We alighted. I had barely time to get my little luggage secured
in its place, and to settle about the fare, when it was time to part. He em-
braced me fervently, and said, ' Henri, bid me a good farewell.' I felt my
heart breaking, but not a tear came. I followed him with my eyes as long as
that consolation wjis possible ; at last a turn in the road suddenly hid him
from me, and I never saw him again.

28o Life and W'oi ks oj lueiLric Ozanam.

" It was towards evening. When we reached the top of the hill that over-
looks Bayonne, the sun was sinking into the shining waves of the sea, a
mantle of purple and gold encircled all tlie landscape, the sands of Biarritz
sparkled in the distance through a mist of fire, an artificial flame marked
where the lighthouse stood, and our eyes were riveted on this signal, lost in an
ocean of light. The spectacle, far from dispelling my sadness, expanded it, as
it were, to the infinite. Through this glorious revelation of light, of love, of
beauty, I saw, at one glance, all the happy days of which this evening was the
decline, and, regret bringing me back to him to whom I owed its charm, I be-
held him as a friend lost to me for ever. I was grieved not to have shown him
more affection ; 1 spoke to him ; I greeted him from afar ; I swore to be eter-
nally faithful to him ; but the future held out no promise of- consolation to
me. I heard his voice still bidding me ' Farewell !' I fell into a sadness so
deep that my soul was for a time submerged in it."

Yet even after this supreme farewell Ozanam was not with-
out his intervals of hope. He spoke cheerfully of the benefit
his health had derived from the sea-bathing and lovely
climate of Biarritz, and alluded to his recovery "being pro-
bably postponed till next summer," always adding the pro-
viso, " that is, if God wills that I should recover at all."

Idleness, inaction, and the separation from his friends were
still his heaviest trial ; but when a word of complaint escapes
him he quickly retracts it, and enumerates his many reasons
for thankfulness. " I am ungrateful," he says to Lallier ; " I
have the great happiness of seeing my wife and child in
blooming health, of being able to enjoy their society. I am
able to devote myself to the education of my little Marie with
a leisure that I never knew formerly. I ought to be happy
and bless the great mercy of Providence; and yet I am de-
pressed ; I need your prayers more than ever." The arrival
of his brother Charles, who had broken away from his practice
in Paris to come and take care of him, was a new and great
cause of thankfulness to the invalid. '' He arrived the other
day in a torrent of rain, this dear brother, like a rainbow — a
symbol of the hope he has brought to us. After examining,
thumping, feeling, and sounding me, he declares that Eaux-
Bonnes has done wonders, and that I am well ! How can I,
in the face of this verdict, permit myself to catch the shadow
of cold or fever ? "

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 281

The important question now was, wiiere he was to pass the
winter. His name had been proposed as a member for the
Iristiiut^ and he had been extremely anxious to return to Paris
in xNovember, if it were possible, in order to take personal
steps for the success of his candidature, but before November
had come the impossibility of this plan was made palpable. It
was now a choice between remaining on at Bayonne or pass-
ing into Spain, where the climate was warmer and drier. This
latter alternative attracted Ozanam, as it held out the prospect
of a new country in which he was much interested, and with
whose language he was already tolerably familiar. Against
this had to be balanced the fatigue of travelling in his present
exhausted state. " But the worst of all fatigues is doing
nothing," he declares. " It is true, I am too well surrounded
for my heart to be in want of occupation, but my mind needs it
sadly. When I come to the end of my day without having
done anything, this idleness weighs on me like a remorse, and
it seems to me that I deserve neither the bread that I eat nor
the bed I lie down on."

Travelling had been his passion all his life, and he longed
to seize the present opportunity, persuaded that the moral
and intellectual enjoyment must compensate for whatever
bodily fatigue the journey would involve.

"Alas ! in the presumptuous days of my youth," he says, "I spurned the
sacred isle of Ceres. My desires extended on one side to the Columns of Her-
cules, and on the other to the shores of Palestine. How often have I embarked
for the Holy Land, seated by the fireside with Madame Ozanam, tongs in
hand, and turning; over a half-burned log! And here I am now at Bayonne,
a town half-Spanish, where most of the signboards over the shops speak the
purest Castilian, and I am hesitating about pushing on to Seville ! "

He broke loose one day and set off with his wife on a little
excursion into Spain, which he enjoyed immensely, but paid
for by some weeks of more enforced and absolute repose than
ever. He contended, however, that the pleasure had not
been too dearly bought ; that he had garnered a stock of
poetry, beauty, and delight, to feed his imagination for 9,
month.

282 Life and Works oj Frederic Ozanain.

" In former journeys my mind was distracted by the works of man. In this
land, where man has done little, I see only the works of God, and I now say,
with all the might of my faith, God is not only the great Geometer, the great
Legislator, He is also the great, the supreme Artist. He is the Author of all
poetry ; He has poured it over creation in floods ; and if He wished the world
to be good. He also meant it to be beautiful. . . . Yes, one is possessed by a
sense of moral purity on those heights which the foot of man rarely sullies, by
the brink of those cascades where none but the chamois comes to quench his
thirst, in the midst of those wildernesses where the flowers open their cups
onjy to perfume the solitude of tlie Most High. David had stood upon the
heights of Lebanon when he cried out, Mirabilis in altis Dominus! He had
beheld the ocean when he exclaimed, Mirabiles elationes 7naris !

" We, too, we have stood here by the seashore, and we are never wearied
of the grand spectacle it displays to us.daily. We all know that the ocean is
full of grandeur and majesty, but it is only when we come near to it that we
learn how full of grace it is. We are just come back, my wife and I, from
witnessing a sunset. The great star was about to disappear behind the hills
of Spain, whose bold outlines we can see from hence standing out against a
perfectly beautiful sky. The mountains dipped their feet into a luminous
golden mist that floats above the sea ; the rays followed one another in chang-
ing colors, now green, now azure, sometimes tinted with pink and lilac ; then
they fainted away upon the sandy beach, or else broke against the rocks that are
white with foam. The wave, travelling in from afar, rose against the cliffs
and danced over them in sheafs of spray with all the fantastic grace of those
artificial waters that play in the gardens of kings. But here, in the domain of
God, the play is eternal. Every day it recommences, and every day it varies
according to the power of the wind and the fulness of the tide. "

It was finally decided that ihey should venture into Spain,
and, if the first essay proved favorable, pass the winter there.
Ozanam had a great desire to visit the tomb of St. James at
Compostella, but the cold was so severe tliat he was obliged
to renounce this plan, and, after sojourning a few days at
Burgos, retraced his steps to Bayonne.

The disappointment was the greater, from the beginning
having promised so well. On tlie evening of his arrival at
Burgos he writes to his brother Charles, who had left him and
returned to Paris :

" It would seem up to this that I have done well in coming, and that God
hcis blessed our good intentions. We have had, nevertheless, thirty-three
hours' journey, mountains to traverse, second-rate inns, and the rain into the
bargain, which caught us on the way. With all this I have not taken cold,
and I am not suffering. At three o'clock this afternoon we made our entry

Life and Works of Frederic Ozatiain. 283

into this ancient capital, which calls itself the mother of kings and restorer of
kingdoms — madre de reyes, y restauradura de regnos. "

The next day he set out to explore the old town, his first
visit being for the cathedral, where he spent three delightful
hours. " But on coming out," he says, at the close of an en-
thusiastic description of the magnificent edifice — " a work not
of giants but of angels " — " we found such torrents of rain,
such a furious wind, and streets "rendered so impracticable by
both, that we had to give up all idea of further sight-seeing
that day."

He contrived, however, when it cleared off for a short
interval, "to salute the place where the house of the Cid had
stood, the ark of Fernau Gonzalez, the famous Count of
Castile," and to pay a visit to the house of a lady, where ihey
met one of the founders of a Conference of St. Vincent de
Paul at Burgos.

In spite of " the abominable weather, which lasted three
whole days, and of the inclement cold, and the stupidity of
the inhabitants, who have not the faintest notion of warming
their houses," the invalid escaped all unpleasant consequen-
ces, and was in high spirits with his expedition.

" I am very glad to have made this pilgrimage," he assures his brother ; " it
has performed more even than it promised, and will throw a flood of light on
my studies, if God permits me to resume them. In this way my year of idle-
ness will not have been quite lost. I employed my autumn as much as I could
in studying Spain in the middle ages ; but it was hard to form an accurate idea
of a country I had not seen. The chief theatre of Spain in the middle ages is
Burgos, the scene of the greater number of those heroic exploits celebrated in
the popular ballads. Elsewhere I should have seen episodes ; here I had the
poem itself. It is, no doubt, after all, only tradition and memories, and the
pleasure of saying to one's self, / have seen the spot. But then there are the
monuments; the admirable basilica I have described, . . . and finally, two
grand monasteries that we were going off to see when I interrupted my letter.
The first is that of Las Huelgas, a convent of noble gentlewomen, founded by
Alphonsus VIII. in 1185. . . . The second is the monastery of Trappists
(Chaitreux), erected by Isabella the Great, in memory of her father. King John
II. . . . Here I found the apogee of Castilian art, when Spain still lived on
her native genius, before she was aggrandized and saddened, and soon after
oppressed by the Austrian dynasty. In a sojourn of three days I passed in re-
view three centuries of history. How grateful I should be to God for giving

284 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

me strenjjth to undertake this journey, and to you, my dear brother, whose
care prepared me for it, and to my Amelia, who has had all the anxiety of it."

The souvenir of this rapid excursion remains to us in tliat
lovely piece of picturesque writing entitled " A Pilgrimage to
the Land of the Cid." The grace and freshness of the open-
ing page, where the pilgrim bewails his inability to accom-
plish his journey to the desired goal, have seldom been sur-
passed :

" It used to be a favorite devotion of our fathers to go in pilgrimage to St.
James of Compostella. . . . Before returning to their own countrj', these
pious pilgrims would visit the beach where, as the legend says, the body of the
apKJStle was cast by the waves ; here they would gather quantities of shells,
with which they ornamented their head-gear and their mantles ; some they
took home to their children, and in the long winter's evenings these were
handed round by neighbors and friends sitting by the hearth. I, too, dreamed
of a pilgrimage to St. James, . . . but a will which overrules ours arrested me
at the first stage, and brought my pilgrimage to an end, not at the tomb of the
apwstle, but in the land of the Cid. And so I have come home with my hands
void of shells, but full of those fluttering leaves on which the traveller notes
down his impressions by the way, intending to complete them later. This is
all 1 have to offer to my friends, to my neighbors — those who share with me
that neighborhood of the mind and heart which unites so many Christians in
our day, and induces them to prolong the 'vigil, watching in hojie together,
notwithstanding the badness of the nights."

After glancing rapidly at the country and the populations
through which he hurries, Ozanam stops to consider Burgos
under three separate aspects — as a city of heroes, of kings,
and as the city of the Virgin Mother. The shadow of the
mighty Cid hovers over him at every step through the city of
heroes, in tlie castle where his marriage with Chimene was
celebrated, in the church where he challenged Alphonsus IV.,
and compelled him to deny on his oath that he had any
share in the murder of his bT'Other ; he shows us suspended
from the roof of this church the famous box which the bril-
liant Cid filled with sand, and then pledged to two Jews for a
huge sum of gold, alleging that it was filled with precious
gems. He leads us to the warrior's tomb, where, laid side
by side in one coffin, he and his Chimene rest, " not parted

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 285

in death." For two reals a valet draws aside the pall, and
opens the coffin for the inspection of the curious traveller.

Ozanam shuddered as he offered the coin which paid for
this irreverence. " There is always something horrible in the
violation of the secret of the grave; I cannot bear the sight
of those withered bones, unless sanctity has clothed them
witli an imperishable garment."

But the narrator does not dwell exclusively on heroic or
sacred subjects. He is alive to every humorous character-
istic and incident of the places and the people through which
he passes.

" Let not my friends imagine," he says, '• that I found no better lodging and
fare in the land of the Cid than he and his companions when they encamped
on the dreary shore of Arlanzon. I must avenge this fair and much maligned
countr)-. ... If the lodging is at best but mediocre, the kitchens are still
heroic. Never did I behold suspended from a ceiling such an imposing array
of dripping-pans, sauce-pans, and kettles. I gazed above all on those long
files of pots, which reminded me — forgive the Homeric reminiscence — of the
long file of Penelope's servants whom Telemachus hung up on the same rope
in chastisement of their perfidy. The huge patriarchal chimney-piece projects
into the middle of the room, and beneath its shelter the traveller finds a warm
comer, without fear of scandalizing the beehive of cooks, accustomed to the
blessed familiarity of Spanish manners. Here his eye may rest lovingly on the
tempting fried eggs, the partridges gilding themselves before the fire, and the
brown chocolate foaming in the bowl. If j-our abstemiousness is satisfied with
this, if you don't recoil from the smell of the leathern flask which testifies to
the authenticity of that bottle of Malaga, if you have not the dangerous
curiosity to taste those suspicious-looking pease, swimming in the neighboring
f)Ot, or those meats basted with rancid oil — rest assured ; we shall live. We
shall live, and you will bear me no maUce for hanng come down from my
poetic heights to these prosaic realities. They have not, in truth, turned us
aside from Spanish literature ; for if the poem of the Cid had its birth on the
battle-field, it was from the kitchen of an inn that Don Quixote sallied forth
as a knight to fight the giants and avenge aU wrongs.;

The traveller introduces us to another sprightly scene, a
tennis-court in tlie Basque country, where we see the elders
seated on the bench of judges solemnly watching the game,
while, close at hand, that faithful counsellor of contested
causes, the bottle, stands cool and convenient in a hole in
the wall. The spectacle of a bull-fight would of course

286 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

have been an inevitable duty for the stranger passing through
the city of kings, but Ozanam confesses that he was thankful
to escape it, the season for that national entertainment being
over. The Plaza Mayor of Burgos, with its graceful porticos
and symmetrical rows of windows, was not now a sanguinary
amphitheatre, but a beautiful square, whose lists were only
crossed by dark-eyed women going to draw water from the
fountain, bearing their vessels erect on their head and singing
joyous snatches as they went. He takes leave of the city by
a poetic invocation to Notre Dame de Burgos :

"The moment is come to take leave of these lovely scenes, which I shall
never behold again, and to whom I leave a portion of my affections and
regrets, as to so many other ancient towns, mountains, and shores. There is
somewhere in Sicily a group of broken columns overshadowed by an olive-
grove ; in Rome there is a chapel in the catacombs ; in the Pyrenees there is a
shrine beside which the limpid waters run beneath an i\'y-mantled bridge ;
there is in Brittany a melancholy beech, to which my thoughts return with an
indescribable charm, above all when the present hour is gloomy and the future
uncertain. I will add Burgos to these pilgrimages of memory, which console
me sometimes in the painful pilgrimage of life. Suffer me then to Ccist one
long farewell glance on the grand Cathedral ; let me kneel once more within
the radiant sanctuary, before the Virgin of the altar-piece, and if the prayer of
a Catholic scandalizes you, hearken not to it : O Our Lady of Burgos, . . .
Queen of all Catholic cities ; yes, truly, thou art ' all beautiful and gracious,'
pulchra es et decora, since the sole thought Of thee drew down grace and
beauty into these works of man. Barbarians rushed forth from their forests,
and seemed like incendiaries made only to destroy. But thou didst render
them so gentle that they bowed their heads, and yoked themselves to chariots
heavily laden, and became obedient to masters to erect churches to thy name.
Thou didst render them so patient that they did not count the centuries
spent in chiselling superb porticos, galleries, and spires for thee. Thou didst
render them so bold that their basilicas soared in height far beyond the loftiest
monuments of the Romans, and at the same time so chaste that these mighty
creations, peopled with statues, breathe naught but the purity of immaterial
love. Thou didst conquer even the pride of those haughty Castilians, who
abhorred labor as a symbol of serfdom ; thou didst disarm many hands that
knew no glory e.xcept in shedding blood ; instead of a sword thou didst give
them a trowel and a chisel, and thou didst sustain them for three hundred
years in thy fields of peaceful labor. O Notre Dame ! how nobly has God
rewarded the humility of his handmaid ! In return for the poor house of
Nazareth, where thou didst lodge his Son, what magnificent abodes he has
given thee ! "

On his way home from Spain Ozanam made a pilgrimage

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanani. 287

to Noire Dame de Buglosse, a sanctuary close to the native
village of St. Vincent de Paul, to which, needless to say, he
paid a loving visit.

"I owed it," he explains haJf-deprecatingly, "to the beloved patron who
protected my youth amidst so many dangers, and who shed such unlooked-for
blessings on our humble Conferences. It is only a short day's journey from
Bayonne. We arrived first at the little village of Pouy, now called St. Vin-
cent de Paul, cifter its glorious son. We saw the old oak under which St. \'in-
cent, when he was a little shepherd boy, used to take shelter while keeping his
flock. The fine old tree only holds to the ground by the bark of a trunk eaten
away by the years, but its branches are magnificent, and even in this advanced
season still retain their green foliage. They seemed to me a true symbol of
the foundations of St. Vincent, which look as if they were upheld by nothing
human, and which nevertheless triumph over time, and grow in the midst of
revolutions. I send you a leaf from the blessed tree ; it will dry in the book
where you place it ; but charity will never grow drj- in your heart."

Ozanam had felt so much better when starting on this little
pilgrimage that he made it rather in thanksgiving than in sup-
plication. He was therefore somewhat startled when, on en-
tering the confessional in the little church, the priest, who had
never seen him, and knew nothing about him, began at once
to exhort him to patience and courage in suffering. This
spontaneous advice struck him all the more, he confessed to
Lallier, because there was something in the childlike simpli-
city of the old priest that reminded him of St. Vincent de
Paul. " He spoke of nothing but patient acceptance of pain,
of submission to the will of God in sorrow," the penitent says,
relating the incident; " and this language surprised me, feel-
ing, as I did, so strong and well." A few days after his re-
turn from Buglosse the warning began to prove itself pro-
phetic. The intense fatigue came on again, and with it other
symptoms, the certain forerunners of the end. But he did
not or would not despond. "I am dwelling in a land of de-
lights," he says, alluding to the beauty of the surrounding
scenery; "my wife and child are in perfect health; and I, the
official invalid of the family, am indulging in pranks of every
sort, which, if they reached the ears of the Minister of Public
Instruction, would very probably cut short my conge."

CHAPTER XXV.

While Ozanam, lingering beneath ihe shadow of the Py-
renees, addresses his adieu to the land of the Cid, before set-
ting forth on the journey which was to be his last in this
world, we will pass rapidly in review those of his works which
have not been already mentioned.

Every separable book, lecture, and essay that he produced
formed part of the vast primary plan which he had sketched
out for himself as a boy, and which he never lost sight of in
his literary and professional career. The ascendency of this
one idea in his mind has given to that portion of the work
which he accomplished a character of unity and completeness,
which is the more striking when we consider the fragmentary
and sometimes inverted method which he pursued. He began
with the study of Dante, and he announces later on that his
purpose is to give a complete history of the Barbarous Ages,
and then go on through that of the Middle" Ages, up to the
thirteenth century, where he will stop at Dante, as the culmi-
nation of that epoch, its epitome, and its glory.

The mere outline of the unfinished monument sufficiently
indicates the mental grasp required for so gigantic a scheme,
while the energy of purpose and unswerving fidelity which the
historian displays in its execution testify to a greatness of soul
and true love of science still more admirable. For Ozanam's
peculiar circumstances laid him especially open to the tempta-
tion which besets most men of letters in those days of eager-
ness for ready returns and easy popularity. But he spurned
the lower service, and steadily turned his back on that liberal
paymaster, especially in France, called " actuality," and faith-
fully toiled on in the nobler path he had chosen out from the
beginning.

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanafn. 289

He had been frequently advised to let his lectures be
taken down in shorthand, but he could never bring himself
to consent, owing to the extreme severity which he exercised
towards his work and the high finish he exacted in it. In
the years 1849 ^'^*^ i^So? however, his reluctance was over-
come, and the reporters of tiie Sorbonne took down his cours
on the Fifth Century. He himself was surprised at the suc-
cess of the experiment, and regretted not having tried it
sooner. This regret must be shared by all who have read
those two beautiful volumes, which only appeared after his
death, under the title of Civilisation an Cinqtcienie Sihle.
" The first five of these lectures," says M. Ampbre, in his
Preface to Ozanam's works, " revised by the author, came
out in the Correspondant. . . . They are preceded by a pre-
face, which is, as it were, his literary testament. These five
lectures form, in my opinion, one of the finest and most fin-
ished pieces that have issued from Ozanam's pen."

The author's own introduction to the work forms the best
commentary that could be written on it, and unfolds its de-
sign more clearly than a volume of reviews. This preface
was written in the afternoon of Good Friday, 185 1, on his re-
turn from those sublime offices in which the Church com-
memorates the most sacred mystery of our faith. It opens
thus :

" I purpose writing the literary history of the Middle Ages, from the fifth
century to the close of the thirteenth, up to Dante, where I shall stop, as at the
point most worthy of representing that grand epoch. But in the history of
letters I shall make civilization, of which they are the flower, my chief study,
and in civilization I recognize the chief work of Christianity. ... As a lay-
man, I have no mission to deal with theological subjects, and God, moreover,
who loves to be served by the eloquence of man, finds plenty in our day to
vindicate our dogmas. But while Catholics were absorbed with the defence
of doctrine, the unbelieving seized upon history. They laid hands upon the
Middle Ages, they sat in judgment upon the Church, judging her sometimes
with enmity, sometimes with tlie respect due to a fine ruin, often with a levity
they would not have used in treating profane subjects. We must reconquer
this territory, which belongs to us, since we find it cleared by the hands of our
monks, our Benedictines, and our Bollandists — those men who did not think
their life ill spent in growing pale over parchments and legends. . . . Gib-

290 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

bon the historian went to visit Rome in his youth. One day, while wander-
ing through the Capitol, the sound of hymns brqke suddenly on his ear ; he
saw the doors of the basilica of the Ara Cceli open, and a long procession of
FrAnciscan monks come forth, brushing with tiieir sandals tlie pavement tra-
versed by so many triumphs. It was then that indignation inspired him ; he
formed the design of avenging antiquity, outraged by Christian barbarism ;
he conceived the plan of the Decline 0/ the Roman Empire. And I too have
beheld the monks of Ara Cceli treading on the venerable pavement of Jupiter
Capitolinus ; 1 saw it, and I rejoiced as at the victory of love over strength,
and I resolved to write the history of the progress of that period where the
English philosopher saw nothing but decay, the history of civilization in the
barbarous ages, the history of the human mind escaping from the shipwreck
of the empire of letters, and traversing the flood of the invasions, as the He-
brews crossed the Red Sea, and under the same guidance : forti tegente bra-
chio. I know nothing more supernatural, nothing that proves more clearly
the diNdnity of Christianity, than to have saved the human mind."

He foresees that many will tax him with inopportune zeal,
alleging that the accusations of the eighteenth century have
fallen into oblivion or discredit, that a reaction, almost exces-
sive, has set in concerning the decried Middle Ages ; but this
argument has no weight with him. Experience and history
go to prove how little these sudden revulsions in publ.c feel-
ing are to be trusted ; they come and go, " like the wave
falling back from the shore it caresses." A tendency to keep
aloof from these stern Christian epochs was already manifest-
ing itself; many who were ready to admire the grand charac-
ter of their genius could not brook their austerity.

" There is at the bottom of human nature an imperisJiable paganism which
■wakes up in everj' century, which is not dead in ours, and which is always
ready to fall back into pagan philosophies, into pagan laws and pagan arts, be-
cause men find there the realization of their dreams, and the satisfaction of their
instincts. Gibbon's thesis is still that of half Germany ; it is the thesis of all
the sensual schools, who accuse Christianity of stifling the legitimate develop-
ment of human nature by denying the flesh, by adjourning to a future state the
happiness that ought to be found here below, by destroying that enchanted
■world where Greece had deified strength, riches, and pleasure, and supplant-
ing it by a sorrowful world where humility, poverty, and chastity keep guard
at the foot of the cross."

Ozanam is careful, on the other hand, to avoid falling into
the opposite snare of excessive admiration for the Middle
Ages, an extreme which leads its enthusiasts to ignore their

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanafn. 291

dangers, and even to justify their errors, thus apparently mak-
ing Christianity responsible for the disorders of an age in
which it is represented as reigning supreme over the hearts
and minds of men.

" We must know how to praise the majesty of the cathedrals and the hero-
ism of the Crusades without condoning the horrors of eternal warfare, the
harshness of feudal institutions, the scandal of princes perpetually at war with
the Holy See on account of their divorces and their simonies. We must see
'the evil as it is, that is to say, formidable, precisely in order the better to ap)-
preciate the services of the Church, whose glorj' it is, during these misunder-
stood centuries, not to have reigned, but to have fought. I approach my sub-
ject, consequently, full of horror of barbarism, and of respect for all that was
praiseworthy in the inheritance of antique civilization. ... I write . . .
because, God not having given me strength enough to guide the plough, I
must, nevertheless, obey the common law of labor, and do my day's work. I
write, like those workmen of the first centuries, who turned vases of clay or
glass to serve for the daily uses of the Church, and in whose rude designs the
Good Shepherd, the Virgin, and the Saints were represented. These poor work-
men never dreamed of the future, and yet some fragments of their vases, dis-
covered in cemeteries fifteen hundred years afterwards, come forth to bear wit-
ness and prove the antiquity of a contested dogma.

" We are all unprofiiable ser%-ants, but we serve a Master who is absolutely
economical, who lets nothing go to waste, not a drop of the sweat of our brow
any more than a drop of His heavenly dew. I know not what fate awaits this
book, whether I shall finish it, or whether I shall reach even the end of the
page that flies beneath my pen. But I know enough to throw into it the
remnant, be it great or small, of my strength and of my days."

It was the year of the Jubilee, the amie'e saiute, whin these
pages were written, and Ozanam thus touchingly alludes to the
coincidence :

" It was on Good Friday, in 1300, the year of the Great Jubilee, when
Dante, arrived, as he said, midway on the road of life, disabused alike of
passions and of errors, began his pilgrimage in hell, in purgatory, and in
paradise. On the threshold of his journey his heart failed him for one
moment ; but from the courts of heaven three blessed women were watching
over him, the Virgin Mary, St. Lucia, and Beatrice. Virgil guided his foot-
steps, and, on the faith of this guide, the poet plunged courageously into the
gloomy pathway. Alas ! I have not his grand soul, but I have, his faith. Like
him, in the middle of my life, I have seen the holy year, the year which divides
the stormy and the fertile centur}-, the year that renews Catholic con-
sciences. . . .

" But whereas Virgil forsakes his disciple before the end of his career, for it
was not permitted him to cross the threshold of paradise, Dante, on the con-

292 Life and Works of Frederic Ozatm>n.

trary, will accompany me to the utmost heights of the Middle Ages, where his
own place is marked out. Three blessed women will also look down upon
me — the V'irgin Mary, my mother, and my sister, while she who is my Beatrice
is still left to me on earth to sustain me by a look and a smile, to lift me from
despondency, to reveal to me, under its most touching image, that power of
Christian love whose works I am about to relate."

The plan unfolded in these pages is magnificently executed ;
and yet these two volumes are but the introduction, the atriun-",
as it were, of the temple Ozanam proposed to build. The
magnitude and variety of subjects which even this fraction of
the work embraces render anything like an adequate analysis
of it impossible in one chapter of a biography. We can
merely glance over it, and point to the parts that strike us
most by their power and interest.

Ozanam first explains the nature and essence of Paganism,
its action and effect on humanity in the barbarous ages ; he
shows us Rome planting her victorious eagles on every soil,
civilizing the peoples she had conquered, making laws, en-
couraging letters and arts, and splendidly patronizing the
gods. He leads us gradually to the point where Paganism is
nothing but a mask to hide the deification of Rome. The
mistress .of the world flings back the portals of her Pantheon,
and invites the nations to come and worship; every god has
an altar there ; but the only divinity Rome adores is Rome ;
rites and oracles and priests are nothing but a pompous mas-
querade kept up for the entertainment of the people-king.
By the time that Caesarism had become the true idolatry of
Rome, its tyranny had invaded not only the life and property
of the subject, but his soul and conscience. Sometimes the
god is called Nero, sometimes Trajan, sometimes Heliogaba-
lus, but his works do not change ; the Empire is always the
same — a paganism whose divinity and high-priest is the empe-
ror; his very statue is worshipped with divine honors; thou-
sands of Christians are tortured and slain because they are too
stiff-necked to burn a few grains of incense at its feet.

Slavery, the natural outcome of this deification, is laid bare
in all its degrading cruelty. It was forbidden to kill a slave,

Life and IVjrks of Frederic Ozaiiam.

293

but the freeman might lawfully torture him to death provided
he paid his value to his master. '1 he master was obligeil to
feed his human cattle, and the following receipt of Cato's
" for making wine for slaves " gives us an idea of how tenderly
this duty was performed :

" Put into a cask ten anaphoras of sweet wine, and two of very sharp vine-
gar, and boil down till this diminishes to twothirds, with fifty amphoras of
fresh water ; keep it stirred with a stick for five consecutive days, and then add
sLsty-four sextarii * of sea-water. " +

" How truly we recognize Paganism here ! " exclaims Oza-
nam, " This bitter draught that it prepares for the slave re-
calls the sponge steeped in vinegar and gall that another
Roman tenders on the point of his lance to another Slave
dying on the Cross for the ransom of slaves," The slave,
under this revolting system, became a mere beast, without
soul, conscience, or inteUigence. He was used to try poisons
on, as we use rats and other vermin ; he had no more human
individuality than a dog or a horse. Seneca indeed once ven-
tured on hypothesis that slaves might after all be men like
ourselves, but this same man, who philosophized so loftily on
disinterestedness and poverty, possessed twenty thousand
slaves, and there is no record of his ever having freed one of
them. The slaves had themselves come to believe that their
owners must be right, and that they were a lower race of dis-
inherited outcasts whom Jupiter had deprived of half their
reason in condemning them to the condition of bondsmen.
And the poor — how did it fare with them ? Worse than with
the slaves, if that were possible.

And yet such was the prestige of Roman power that in
spite of the degradation and corruption it bred in its domin-
ions, the most enlightened philosophers believed the salvation
of the world identical with its reign, with the endurance of an
empire which Tertullian said " alone suspended the end of

* A Roman measure equal to twelve bushels.
tCato, de Re Rmtica, i. civ.

294 Life and Works of Frederic Ozmiam.

time." When the news went forth tliat the Goths were
marching on Rome, that Alaric was before the gates bargain-
ing with Honorius for the city, its inhabitants, and its trea-
sure, even St. Jerome, in the depths of his Eastern solitude,
trembled and cried out in dismay, " A terrible report reaches
us from the West. They talk of Rome besieged, ransomed
with gold, besieged again, so that lives may perish after pro-
perty has gone. My voice is choked, sobs stifle the words I
am dictating."

The mighty genius of St. Augustine alone viewed the great
catastrophe undismayed. Amidst the clash of warring races,
of empires falling to pieces and thrones crumbling under
Gothic battle-axes, Augustine calmly looks back to the origin
of time, and forward to its fulfilment, and discerning the desti-
nies of Rome and the world through the light of Christianity,
he proclaims the law of Christian progress in his wonderful
work, The City of God.

The barbarians brought a stream of fresh manhood into the
effeminate empire they overturned; they introduced those
two primary elements of all civilization, the dignity of man
and respect for women; they set the slave free; they raised
woman, from a base instrument of man's pleasure, into
a divinity ; they placed her on a pedestal and knelt to
her as the Velleda who could foretell their destinies and
avert them.

Christianity entered" through this breach in the wall of
Paganism, and, following up the work begun by the barba-
rians, enthroned woman as a queen on her own hearth, the
equal of man, his guardian angel and comforter, thus develop-
ing into a virtue what was but a primitive instinct in the
savage mind.

Christianity changed the slave into the working-man, and
was the first to reinstate him in a position of dignity and inde-
pendence. The early Christians worked for their bread ; the
Anchorites, Cenobites, and Monks gave more time to manual
labor than to contemplation. Cicero had worked at manual

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 295

labor, and declared there could be "nothing liberal in it";
the Gospel exalts it, and imposes it as a duty upon all men.

Paganism despised the poor, and even held it wrong to
succor wretches who were abandoned and cursed of the gods;
Christianity proclaimed them blessed. Poverty was thus
established in a society that was expiring of over-luxury and
wealth ; chastity was crowned and glorified in a society that
was destroyed by its own corrupt excesses; obedience became
the law where all was perishing from disorder.

Ozanam describes at considerable length, and in language
of singular beauty, the change which Christianity effected in
the social position of woman ; and he shows, too, how worthily
she performed the duties imposed by her new privileges, and
what a noble part she played in the progress of the religion
to which she owed them. Fearing, however, that he might
be suspected of sympathizing with unreasonable claims which
had already begun to be put forth in her name, he adds :

" We must not conclude from this that Christianity had destroyed what
nature had done ; that it meant to precipitate women into pubhc life and re-
establish that absolute equality which the materialism of our age has dreamed
of. No ; Christianity is too spiritual to accept such an idea. The rdle of
Christian women was something similar to that of the guardian angels — they
might lead the world, but while remaining invisible themselves. It is very
seldom that angels become visible in the hour of supreme danger, as the angel
Raphael did to Tobit ; so is it only at certain moments, long foreseen, that the
empire of women becomes visible, and that we behold these angels, who were
the saviours of Christian society, manifesting themselves under the name of
Blanche of Castile and Joan of Arc."

Christianity had been accused by a certain school of having
corrupted the Latin tongue, whereas, on llie contrary, it was
Christianity that saved it. Even in Cicero's time its purity
was affected, as we learn from his complaints that " the great
influx of strangers is adulterating the language." And Quin-
tilian, under Vespasian, laments, too, that in his day " the
whole language is changed." Christianity came not to destroy
but to rescue Latin, and the chief instrument in this re-
demption was the Vulgate^ translated, as we know, in part

296 Life and Works oj Frederic Ozatiam.

from the Greek, in part from the Hebrew, and thus destined
to penetrate the minds of the people with the poetry of the
East on one side, and on the other with the philosophical lore
of Greece. The Bible itself was served in this mission by two
unlooked-for auxiliaries, the Africans and the people — that is
to say, a people half-barbarous at the period we speak of.
Ozanam lays considerable stress on this African character in-
troduced into the Latin literature by Cornutus, the disciple of
Seneca ; by Fronto, the master of Marcus Aurelius ; by Ne-
mesius, by Tertullian, who brings in his wake St. Cyprian, and,
above all, St. Augustine. Whatever importance may be
legitimately attached to this innovation, it is clear that the
Christian tongue dates from Tertullian, and that it is destined
to be the language of the Middle Ages, and the mother tongue
of all modern languages. This is what Christianity accom-
plished through the instrumentality of the Vulgate, and with the
Africans and barbarians as helpmates.

" Our ancestors were right to cany the Bible in triumph and cover it with
gold," saj's Ozanam. "The first of ancient books is likewise the first of
modem ones ; it is, so to speak, the author of these verj' books, for it is from
its pages that were to come forth the languages, the eloquence, the poetry, and
the civilization of modem times."

The concluding chapters of La Civilisation an 5*^ Siecle
show the gradual development of those things in detail — his-
tory, poetry, art, the material civilization of the Empire up to
the formation of the neo-Latin nations. The charm and
vigor of the style are sustained to the last page, and carry
even the unlearned reader with unabated interest through
labyrinths of research which excite the admiration of the most
erudite.

Historians had opened a gulf, as it were, between antiquity
and barbarism. It has been the triumph of Ozanam to bridge
this over, and, by his patient genius and original investigations,
to re-establish those lines of communication which Providence
never allows to fail in time any more than in space.

A year or so after Ozanam's death this work was crowned

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanain. 297

at the Academic Fran9aise, which adjudged to it the annual
prize of ten thousand francs, just then founded, for the finest
hterary work produced within the year. M. Villemain was
charged with the panegyric for the occasion, and as the
opinion of so illustrious a critic is in itself a valuable testi-
mony, we cannot refrain from quoting the following passage
from his speech :

" Learned and natural, always dominated by the same idea, while radiant
with a thousand memories, accurate and full of charming fancies, this book is
an eminent work of literature and taste. It raises criticism to eloquence ; it
conceives and seeks and finds eloquence itself in its highest source, in that
type which never dies, or which rather is for ever born anew in the native in-
stinct of a soul that vibrates to the good and the beautiful, to everything noble
here below, virtue, liberty, science, and to those great truths above which
constitute the promise of Christian faith and hope."

The most superficial perusal of these volumes enables us to
form a pretty good idea of what Ozanam's completed work
would have been. We see here how he performed the pre-
liminary task of clearing the ground, making liis way step by
step through the gloomy night of barbarism until the first
streak of dawn appears, and the Gospel enters and plants the
regenerating doctrine of Christ crucified on the ruins of the
effete and spurious civilization of Rome.

This picture was to have been followed up by another,
equally comprehensive and finished, of all the barbarous
tribes in the wild, free life of their native forests. We should
have seen them encamped on the ruins of the Empire, and
watched them gradually conquered by the teaching of the
Church, learning to respect those things which they had in-
tended to destroy — religion, letters, and art. Advancing
through the dreary waste of the sixth, seventh, and eighth
centuries, we should have come to Charlemagne, who with
one hand arrested the tide of the invasion, and with the other
rekindled the all but extinct light of letters. This would
have brought us to that period when the seeds of a new and
fertile literature were beginning to germinate — when the

298 Life and Works of Ftederic Ozanam.

young idioms were lisping their first songs of cliivalrous
romance, and the enthusiasm of the Crusades was drawing
the chivalry of Europe to the East, while, simultaneously
with this glorious movement, the Communes were awakening
to their liberties, and the schools were filling the world with
the noise of their learned strife— thus, step by step, we should
have reached the thirteenth century, which ushers in the
Christian Renaissance.

Ozanam has handled almost every point of this immense
programme in the course of his work, but the only portions
of it that he accomplished thoroughly are the beginning and
tlie end. The History of Civilization in the Fifth Century,
and Dante .• o>\ Catholic Philosophy in the Thirteenth Cen-
tury, the Etudes Gennaniques, and the Poetes Fraticiscains find
their places at separate intervals between these two works,
wliich he calls " les galons extremes de. mofi ouvrage^

Les Etudes Germaniqucs form two volumes, entided The
Condition of the Germans before Christianity, and Civilization
amongst the Franks ; in other words, the ecclesiastical, politi-
cal, and literary history of the Merovingian period and the
reign of Charlemagne, the study of the German people pre-
vious to their transformation by Christianitv, and the study
of this transformation in itself. Ozanam is assisted in his
laborious expedition through this remote and obscure past by
Tacitus and some German savants ; but they lend him at best
a flickering light. As we see him plunge into the sombre
regions he has undertaken to explore, we are unconsciously
reminded of an adventurous traveller embarking on the obli-
terated pathways of one of those notorious forests of Germany,
with no light to guide his steps but a feeble torch, whose
vacillating flame every gust of wind threatens to blow out.
He does full justice to the erudition and honesty of his pre-
cursors, but he contradicts them at every turn, challenges
their assertions, disproves their facts, and refutes tlieir argu-
ments. He tears up the flimsy delusion of patriotic writers
who, like Gervinus, the historian of German poetry, senti-

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 299

mentally bewail " the mildness of Catholicism, which has
destroyed their warlike ancestors," Ozanam follows up the
study of the ancient religion of Germany to its earliest origin,
in order to show what were the obstacles and the resources
which it was one day to present to Christianity.

"Many German historians, in discovering in the traditions of their father-
land those grand notions of the Divinity, of immortality, and of justice which
sustain the whole human conscience, have reproached the Christian mission-
aries with having come to disturb a people who had no need of them, and of
having calumniated creeds that they did not understand. It is consequently a
novelty in favor nowadays to absolve idolatry, to justify even those obscene
idols which the ancients adored, we are informed, in innocent simplicity. . . .
It was therefore necessary to show the excess to which superstition was carried
by these peoples, and how it w,:-, l.-aJing on to the overthrow of all the pro-
tecting laws of humanity, if ■ tc Gospel had not come in time to reinstate
them."

The historian goes on to show how everywhere, in manners,
customs, laws, and creeds, barbarism reveals its true character
of savage violence, cruelty, and immorality. He does not
deny the existence of the noble ideas which the enthusiasts of
Paganism claim for it, but he shows that these elements of
true greatness and power are not radically either pagan or
German ; they are simply a remnant of Christianity, which
links the most famous creeds of antiquity to the creed of the
Gospel. Such were the laws for the protection of family ties,
property, public justice, and other fine traits which bear a
striking family resemblance to the legislation of the East.
The languages, too, bear many signs of kindred with the
Latin, Greek, and Sanscrit tongues, while their poetry con-
tains an unmistakable ring of the old fables of the classical
apogee. The traces of a tradition, common alike to the no-
mad tribes of the North and the more polished races of the
South, are everywhere visible. Everywhere we see the same
essential conditions, however disguised under special charac-
teristics ; it is always an old order of things at war with the
spirit of disorder and destruction, always strife and antagonism,
the inevitable and distinctive character of barbarism j the

300 Life and Works of Frederic Oza/iam.

upheaving of that " imperishable paganism " which Ozanam
declares to be an inalienable instinct of human nature.

These preliminary studies announce plainly enough whither
the conclusion tends. The predominant idea from first to
last is the fraternity of the German nations with the two
great races of the North, the Celts and the Slavs, as well as
with the Southern races; the radical unity, in fact, of the
Indo-European peoples as demonstrated by the immigration
of tribes, by the comparison of mythologies, by the resem-
blance of laws, languages, and religions, and a subsisting basis
of principles and traditions.

" There is no people, however barbarous, in whom we do not detect some
vestige of civiHzation strugghng to defend itself ; there is none so refined but
that we can put our finger on some root of barbarism which nothing can
eradicate. At the bottom of ever)' community, as in the depth of every human
conscience, we come upon law and revolt, we find contradiction and disorder ;
that is to say, what God has not put there. "

It required nothing short of the courage of Christianity to
claim brotherhood for the fierce rude German races with the
refined Greeks and Romans, and it was a task worthy of mo-
dern science and Christian philosophy to undertake to search
out and produce the links of this kindred.

" It was reserved to philology," says Ozanam, "that is to say, to a study
which is counted idle and barren, to arrive at these fertile discoveries, to refute
the conjectures of the materialists, and to establish, by the community of lan-
guage and ideas, an incontestable community of origin between the bhie-eyed,
stalwart races who wandered through the wildernesses of the north, and those
other races browned by the sun. small-limbed and hot-blooded, who built
cities, opened schools, and dug out ports under the fiery skies of the south."

We do not pretend to estimate this dogma, to discuss its
merits or its flaws ; we merely aim at giving some idea of the
work before us, of its research, its power of synthesis, its clear,
subtle analysis, and that union of qualities which render his-
tory a science as admirable as it is useful, a science which
lays bare to mankind the story of their travail and mission in
the past, making it a light to them for the accomplishment of
th^ir destinies in the yet unacted drama of the future,

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 301

Ozanam proceeds in the second part of this first volume to
show us the conflict between the Germans and the Romans.
He describes the causes of the power of Rome and of her
weakness, her conquest ot Germany and its results : cities
founded, roads made, forests cleared away, Paganism thus de-
spoiled of those sylvan solitudes where, as in an inaccessible
stronghold, its gods abode, the entire mechanism of imperial
civilization — political institutions, military and municipal sys-
tems, schools, etc. — is examined and judged with rigorous im-
partiality ; its merits and vices are faithfully depicted. We
watch the decline of letters in the imperial schools; we see
the growing cruelty of the Roman government, and the im-
placable hatred with which it is regarded by the vanquished
race. It had conquered the territory and taken the people
captive, but there was one fortress beyond the reach of its
victorious arms ; this was the human conscience, and so long
as this remained impregnable the victory was incomplete; the
conqueror was defied by an element of resistance which,
sooner or later, must triumph, and prove to him that no force
of arms, however tremendous, can annihilate that which alone
and truly constitutes a people — their nationality.

Yet Ozanam would not have us conclude that the mission
of Rome in Germany was altogether fruitless or fatal.

"When Providence takes such workmen as the Romans for a work, we may
be assured," he says, "it is for no ordinary purpose." "When it permits a
country to be for three hundred years ploughed up by fearful wars we may
know that God means Himself to scatter the seed in the furrows. .\\ the mo-
ment when Drusus was throwing bridges across the Rhine, and cutting roads
through the piack Forest, it was time to make haste, for ten years later a town
of Judea would give birth to Him whose disciples were to pass along these
roads, and complete the destruction of barbarism. The laws of the Emperors,
so learnedly commented on by the jurisconsults, were introducing the reign of
justice, which prepared the way for the law of charity. The Latin tongue
was helping the human mind to acquire those habits of clearness, precision,
and firmness which are as necessary to the progress of science as to the main-
tenance of the faith."

The second volume of tlie Etudes Germaniques goes on to
show how this conquest, which baffled the legions of Csessir

302 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

and the prestige of Rome, was achieved by the omnipotent
sweetness of the Church of Christ. The Franks, who had be-
come the first champions of the Gospel, took the Cross in
their hand, and, plunging into the dark forests beyond the
Rhine, went forth to attack barbarism in its very citadel.
They used no weapons but love, gentleness, and self-devotion ;
but, stronger with these than the soldiers who had overcome
the world, they triumphed; patience conquered those stout
hearts and rebellious natures, which the power of arms had
proved powerless to subdue. The author dwells with pecu-
liar force on the three great events which decide the complete
triumph of Christianity — the conversion of the Franks, the
preaching mission of the Irish, and the conversion of the An-
glo-Saxons. The mission of the Franks is clearly defined
from the moment when the conversion of Clovis enlisted them
under the flag of Christianity, and made them successors to
the Romans in arresting the tide of invasion; they make
Christianity penetrate by degrees into pagan laws and institu-
tions, until its reign becomes universal and secure under the
glorious sceptre of Charlemagne. We see the barbarous na-
tions, under the benign influence of the Gospel, bringing forth
a new civilization and a new empire, whose growth and fruits
are admirably described in the closing studies, entitled The
Churchy The State ^ The Schools. With Charlemagne the era
of barbarism ceases, a new era begins, and a new society is
established.

Ozanam brings out the mission of the Irish race in striking
relief:

" The monastic people of the barbarous ages, the missionary p)eople destined
to carry the light of faith and science into the gathering darkness of the West,
are a people whose sufferings are better known to us than their services, cind
whose marvellous vocation we have not sufficiently studied — the Irish." *

The historians of modern civilization are apt to trace it ex-
clusively to the decay of the Empire and the invasion of the
Teutonic races, overlooking the fact that the Romans werq

*EtMUf Ger., yol. ii. p. 113,

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 303

coming to an end just as the Germans were beginning, and
that they were too old and worn-out to complete the educa-
tion of the on-coming race, so that it required a new genera-
tion to continue the chain and rejoin the links. This, Oza-
nam says, was the mission of the Celtic race, which he shows
us at an early period spreading itself like a fertile seed over
part of Germany, of Italy, Spain, Gaul, Brittany, and Ireland.
The church of Gaul soon cast the nets of her proselytisui over
the rest of the Celtic nations; and while early in the fifth
century she was sending St. Loup and St. Germain to appease
the troubles excited by the Pelagian heresy in Brittany, she
was bidding a Gallo-Roraan, named Patricius, found the
monastic life in the cloisters of Marmoutiers and Lerins,
and then go forth and bear the tidings of the Gospel to the
Irish.

" This virgin island, on whose soil no proconsul had ever set his foot, which
had known neither the exactions of Rome nor its orgies, was also the only
spot in the whole world of which the Gospel took possession without resist-
ance and without bloodshed. The first fervors of the faith which in other
lands drove ihe Christians to martyrdom drew the neophytes of Ireland into
monasteries, and St. Patrick rejoiced to see the sons and daughters of the
chiefs of the clans rang^ing themselves under the rule of the cloister in such
numbers that he could no longer count them. . . . Christianity, which has
always dealt tenderly with converted nations, which spared the temples of
Italy and Greece, did not lay the axe to the sacred woods of the Irish. The
grave genius of the Druids passed, with their science ajid their traditions, to
be purified by the monks. The nuns of Kildare kept up near the church of St.
Bridget a sacred fire, which was still alight there after six hundred years. . . .
St. Columba, on a rock of the Hebrides, lived in familiar intercourse with the
wild beasts of the desert ; and when St. Kevin prayed with outstretched arms,
we are told that the birds came and laid their eggs in his palms. The bards
lured the people after them to the monasteries, taking with them the national
harp, the songs and memories of the land ; saints sought relaxation from
their austere labors in listening to the flute-players ; the poetrj- of the nation
finds a vent in its legends ; and while the monk is enclosed within the narrow
walls of his cell, his imagination wanders over the seas with St. Brendan, or
roams through the invisible world on the footsteps of St. Patrick."*

We must refrain from further quotations, difficult as it is to
resist giving some of those delicate legends which Ozanam

* Etudes Cer., vol. ii. p. 114.

304 Life and Works of Frederic Oziniain.

delights in, and interweaves so gracefully with the austere and
learned narrative of these ancient island saints.

We lay down these two volumes, unable to decide which
most commands our admiration, the eloquence of the writer
or tlie erudition of the historian. It is rare to find the two
qualities united in one man ; the slow, patient research and
analysis of the savant are apt to prove fatal to the ela?i, the in-
spired impulse, of the orator; for we must recollect that these
glowing chapters were lectures delivered spontaneously ; but
Ozanam possessed the twofold power of oratory and erudition.
" One was as natural to him as tlie other was," says Lacor-
daire, a competent judge of both ; " he was great when stir-
ring up the dust around him with the miner's mattock, and
great in the full light of day, with the direct glance of the
mind's eye. It was this tliat composed his moral nature — a
mixture of solidity with young and ardent enthusiasm."*

The following letter may be appropriately inserted here :

COUNT DE MONTALEMBERT TO MADAME OZANAM.

" La Roche en Breny, Cote d'Or,
22d Dec, 1855.

" How kind of you, Madame, to have thought of sending me that precious
volume ! I should certainly have procured it myself, but coming from your
hand it is infinitely more precious. I shall have it bound,' and keep it by me
against the return of those sufferings which I earnestly wish I may learn to
bear with the patience and fervent piety of your husband. I noticed with
pleasure and with tender emotion some letters of his at the beginning of the
Livre des Malades. One longs for more of them, for it was there that his
soul poured itself out fully. . . I was all the more touched by this souvenir
that has come to me so unexpectedly from you and from him, because I have
been living in community of studies and thought with him for some time
past. I have a volume of the Etudes Gcrmaiiiques always open before me,
and 1 am forced to acknowledge, with a pardonable sort of despair, that ^f.
Ozanam has left absolutely nothing to be said by those who come after liim to
glean in the fields where he has reaped. The affection that I have always
borne him, and my reverence (culte) for his blessed and noble memory, can
alone console me for being thus always left so far behind by his eloquence and
his loyal erudition.

" My wife wishes me to remember her specially to you. Your image is

• Frediric Osanam, p. 45.

Life and Works of Frederic Ozaiiam. 305

constantly present to us, and your name recurs continually in our conver-
sations.

" Believe in tlie respectful attachment of your most humble servant,

"Charles de Montalembert."

We have now to speak of Danie et la Philosophie Catholique
autreizieme siecle. The prestige of Dante's name is so sublime
that it requires some courage to approach it, even under the
protection of an authorized guide ; yet it is impossible, in the
most cursory notice of Ozanams works, to pass by in silence
that which is perhaps the most widely known of them all.

Our readers have probably not forgotten the profound im-
pression he received when, on standing for the first time in
those chambers of Raphael which he designates •' the sanc-
tuary of Christian art," he beheld amidst the doctors of theo-
logy, in the " Dispute ot the Blessed Sacrament," a figure
" remarkable by its originality, a head crowned, not with the
mitre or the tiara, but with a wreath of laurel, yet noble and
austere withal, and nowise unworthy of that high company."

Why is Dante Alighieri placed side by side with the angel
of the schools, with St. Bonaventure Savonarola, and other
accredited teachers of the divine science ? This sudden
enquiry awakes in the mind of the boy tourist a reverent curi-
osity which deepened with years, and gives us the true motive
and immediate scope of the present work.

No book written by man has begot so much commentary
as that in.rcortal song which Gioberti * styles " the human
Bible of modern .society " ; from the fourteenth century to the
nineteenth it flows on in an unbroken stream, each age bring-
ing its peculiar character and spirit to the task of criticising,
interpreting, elucidating ; and yet Cesare Balbo, the latest
and most admired of Dante's biographers, declares that a
commentary of the Diinna Commedia remains yet to be
written. Nor will this assertion seem exaggerated if we come
to consider the extraordinary contradictions that exist amongst
all those that have yet appeared.

• Del Primato, p. 378

3o6 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

The immense family of Dantesque commentators may be
classed in four schools, the ascetic and the political, the school
of tlie grammarians, and the historians. The ascetics discover
in the allegories a whole series of mystical and theological
doctrines. This school comprises nearly all the commenta-
tors from Dante's own contemporaries down to Cristoforo
Landino in 1457.

The political school includes those who regard the emanci-
pation of Florence and of all Italy from papal supremacy as
the main object of the poem.

The grammarians and the historians s^ilit hairs over the
interpretation of the letter, and contest the chronological
accuracy of the facts. Each school contains a principle of
truth and a principle of error. Of trutli, inasmuch as these
four elements all exist in the poem, but are so harmoniously
balanced, and grouped round th^ central idea in such exqui-
site symmetry, that we may apply to the Divina Commedia
those words of Dante describing the beauty of Beatrice,
"... sola il suo Fattore tutta la goda." Of error, because,
instead of viewing these elements as distinct, yet harmonizing
in a perfect whole, each commentator detaches one from the
rest, and works it to excess, neglecting the others, and thus
straying from the lines of full and accurate interpretation.

The ascetic school slips into mystic subtleties that end by
douding the poem, effacing the true Dantesque idea, and re-
placing it by neo-Platonism. Again, we see the purely political
allegories strained and tortured to express the jargon of free-
masonry, of seers and humanitarians ; while men of letters
and students of history, by attending exclusively to the literal
interpretation, open the door to the cavilling of the sophists,
and by pushing chronological rasearch too* far reduce the
poem to a chronicle.

Balbo, therefore, is justified in saying that the worthy com-
mentator of Dante is yet to come, the one who, by embracing
in their proper proportions tliese diverse but not heterogene-
ous elements, will restore to the Commedia that unitv of con

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 307

ccption which has hitherto been so grievously misunderstood.
Ozanam did not aspire to so elaborate a work. His chief aim
was to reveal to us in Dante the theologian and philosopher,
the disciple of St. Thomas Aquinas and Niger de Brabant.

After having been the most glorified of men, venerated and
exalted for centuries, Dante was destined, like all human
celebrities, to experience the fickleness of human glory. Phi-
losophy had been the master- passion of his mind, and yet the
work which most victoriously embodied this, the book to
which he sacrificed his life, and which, as he pathetically puts
it, " made me lean for years," had come down to us after six
hundred years shorn of the greater portion of that philoso-
phical interest which its author prized above every other.

This was the task which Ozanam set himself to accomplish :
to reconstitute this mutilated portion of the poet's glory, and
rehabilitate that formula of starry and translucent truth with
which, guided by his seeing eye, the Florentine penetrated
into the inmost mystery of life and human destiny.

Nothing in the Middle Ages has been more calumniated
than their philosophy. It is represented as turning in a
groove of systems, quarrels, and sterile speculations, having
for its instrument a barbarous, indocile, and pedantic lan-
guage. Dante stands forth to vindicate this maligned period,
and he does so in an idiom intelligible to women and chil-
dren. He takes up one of these semi-barbarous mediaeval
tongues and shows us what can be done with it; in his hands
the Italian vocabulary expands to the breadth of his vast
comprehension ; it grows strong with his strength, sweeter
with his sweetness, its mellifluous tones borrow a more liquid
music when they become the medium of his inspired thoughts.

The secret of Dante's immortality lies in that union of phi-
losophy with poetry which his sublime song presents ; the
Divina Commedia addresses itself to doctors, princes, souls of
every class and in every age, and all listen entranced, " un-
derstanding every one in his own tongue." A poem which
embraces such an illimitable range presents a horizon too

3o8 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanarn.

vast for any one critic to span. And Ozaiiam wisely confines
himself to one aspect of the work, that which, he says, " is
the least cultivated, but perhaps the most fertile." But to do
even this thoroughly involved an immense toil, A philoso-
phical system is not an isolated fact, " it is the produce of the
concurrence of all the faculties of the soul, and these faculties,
in !heir turn, obey the anterior education they have received,
and external impulses. It is therefore necessary to begin by
studying the general aspect of Dante's epoch, the phases of
contemporary scholasticism, the special characteristics of the
Italian school to which he belongs, the studies and vicissitudes
that fill his life, and the effect which these united causes must
have exercised on his destinies." *

The answer to these enquiries would involve the solution of
endless historical questions. It would be necessary, in order
to sift the various mediaeval conceptions grouped together in
the Divina Commedia, to trace them up to their original
sources, starting from the Eastern sanctuaries, and proceeding
through the Arab, the Alexandrine, the Latin, the Greek, and
the Christian schools ; but as no individual life would suffice
for such a process, Ozanam takes only a rapid glance along
the vista ; like Dante before entering the circle, iie looks and
passes on, granting but a brief interview to each period,
school, and personage. But with Beatrice he lingers; before
this sweet conception, this heavenly light whom all surround-
ing beams irradiate, who combines the very essence of the
mystic song, its divine philosophy and its purest earthly inte-
rest, the enthusiasm of the commentator gives itself free vent
and rises to ecstasy. Others have written wisely and beauti-
fully about Beatrice, have analyzed, exalted, explained her ;
but Ozanam, Hke Dante himself, tunes his lyre to a seraphic
key, and sings like one who worships. Avoiding the two
rocks on which his predecessors have split — one school re-
garding her as a purely abstract symbol, the other as nothing
but an earthly reality — he shows us Dante passionately loving

• DuhU tt la Fkil. Cath., Introd. p. 65,

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 309

the woman, longing for her, losing her ; we see his hfe irre-
parably impoverished by the loss of this ideal which it never
possessed, but which was destined to color it as no reality
could liave done ; we see him pass from sombre despair to
exulting adoration, and rise up from his sorrow to sing of her
" as no man has yet sung of woman " ; we behold the trans-
formation of the reality into the symbol, we see the mystic
waters rise from their source at the crystal throne, we watch
them flow to meet the stream of human tears, where, blend-
ing in one translucent wave, they bear Beatrice from our
sight, until we behold her emerge on the golden heights of
vision, as the heavenly lady who will guide her votary through
the effulgent circles of Paradise.

It is difficult to see how the most uninitiated student of
Dante can fail to recognize this twofold character of the
poem, or to understand how any controversy could have
arisen about it in the face of his own assertion, " The sense
of this work," he says in the curious letter where he dedicates
// Paradiso to Can Grande, " is not simple, but multiform.
There is first the literal sense, and then the sense hidden
under the letter." It would seem that he attached more
weight to the real than the allegorical sense, for he adds in
the same letter : " The aim of my work, the aim of the whole
and every part of it, is to rescue the living from their misery
and guide them to happiness, not only in the next world, but
in this."

Yet in spite of this authority, the multiform character of the
poem was denied by commentators up to a very recent period.
Ozanam has, it is generally admitted, thrown more light on its
complex meanings than any other modern critic. He sees,
in the poet's wondrous capacity for love, the secret of his true
poetic mission, and shows us how this love, its growth in
sorrow and supreme development in worship, is the experi-
ence that was needed to work out his destiny to its fulfilment.

" According to the laws that rule the spiritual world, the attraction of one
soul is needed to elevate another. This attraction we call love ; in the lang:uage

3IO Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

of philosophy it is also called friendship ; in that of Christianity it is called
charity. Dante was not to escape the common law. At nine years of age —
that is to say, at an age whose innocence admits of no impure suspicion — he
meets at a family festival a child full of nobleness and grace. This sight
awakes in him an affection which has no name on earth, and which he pre-
serves tender and chaste during the perilous season of youth ; dreams where
Beatrice app>ears to him in her radiant beauty ; an indescribable yearning
to find himself in her pathway ; a bow, the merest inclination of the head —
in such things as these did he place his happiness. He was a prey to
fears and hc>f>es, to joys and sadnesses that exercised his sensibihty and puri-
fied it to the most extreme delicacy, disengaging it by degrees from all
vulgar habits and solicitudes ; but. above all, when Beatrice quitted this world
in the bloom of her youth, his thoughts followed her to that in\'isible world of
which she had become an inhabitant, and he delighted to adorn her with the
choicest flowers of immortality ; he surrounded her with the canticles of the
angels, he seated her on the highest steps of the throne of God, he forgot her
death in the contemplation of this glorious transfiguration."*

Grief drove Dante to seek consolation in the writings of
Cicero and Boethius, St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, St.
Thomas Aquinas, St. Bernard, Richard of St. Victor, and
these noble masters amply rewarded his patient study. It
was not long before philosophy became the mistress of his
soul, ruling it as Beatrice had done, but wi;h nusterer sway.
In order to perfect himself in her service he travelled in pur-
suit of science to all the great universities of the day. The
luferno^ and Faradiso\ bear traces of an itinerary which,
passing through Aries, Paris, Bruges, and London, would
seem to land the illustrious student at Oxford. Ozanam re-
frains from pronouncing on its accuracy, but holds it for cer-

*DanU ft la Phil. Cath., p. iig.

It is generally assumed that grief at Beatrice's death was what first awoke Dante's poetic
genius. He himself would seem to prove that it was despair at her marriage. That morning,
after he met her in the streets of Florence, robed in white, and accompanied by women older
than herself — clearly on her way as a betrothed bride to the church— and when she spoke to him
those words which filled him with such joy tnat he thought he had " reached the hmits of
beatitude," he went home and had that vision where he sees her held up in the arms of a man,
who awakes her with the words, " Ego Dominus tuus," and, after constraining her to eat the
burning heart, bears her away, "his joy being suddenly changed to bitter lamentation." Dante
at once sits down and writes his first sonnet, which he sends round to several friends, asking
them to interpret it ; but they all fail to do so, as he tells us in the Vita A'uova,

We are indebted for this idea — entirely original, as far as we are aware, though so trans-
parently suggestive— to the unpublished notes of an accomplished Italian scholar, Mr. Augustus
Craven.

t Inferno, ix. 38 ; xiL 40 ; xv. 2. % Paradite, x. 47, etc.

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 311

tain that Dante passed some time in Paris, where, in company
with the common herd of students, he attended the lectures
of the learned Sigier in the Rue Fouarre; but here, as in his
native land, science closed her gates against him. He gained
the highest grades, but he was not received into the Academy,
" because he was too poor to pay the fees." So he wended
his way back to Italy, and at Verona sustained a thesis " on
the elements of fire and water" with an e'dat \\\-\\q\\ mayhap
consoled him a little for the loss of academical honors. One
year later he died, and Guido Novello placed a crown of
laurels on his tomb. Thus we see in Dante three distinct
lives, each complete in its sphere — the citizen, the poet, and
the philosopher. We see him in possession of " those three
faculties," says Ozanam, "■ which, united in certain propor-
tions, compose genius — intelligence to perceive, imagination
to idealize, will to realize."

It would seem but too true that the pure memory of Bea-
trice failed to preserve worthy of it the life where it was so
magnificently enshrined. Ozanam, with all his reverence for
Dante, does not attempt to palliate his faults, but he alleges
deprecatingly, " They have a wonderful secret for making you
overlook them — repentance. In the thirteenth century, the
art, so common nowadays, of legitimizing vice by complaisant
doctrines was little known. Sooner or later men came to seek
in religion that grace of expiation of which she is the immortal
dispenser." Dante comes before us in this penitential atti-
tude, as he himself describes it, " with downcast e\ cs. like a
child that confesses its fault," avowing in the face of all future
generations the follies of his youth. The Vita Nuova is the
naive confession of his early years ; the two books de Vulgari
EloquetitiA are a philological apologia of the despised idiom
which he used as the instrument of his finest inspirations; the
Convito is the outpouring of those philosophical doctrines which
he had gathered from the sages of antiquity and modern doc-
tors. Then follows the work of which these are the heralds
jind the preparation, the Divina Commedia. But earth wa?

312 Life and Works of F' idcric Ozanam.

too narrow a stage for this vast, unfathomable poem. True
poetry is an intuition of the infinite, a perception of God in
creation, a divine instinct reaching to the life beyond life, up-
lifting the soul with a sweet and powerful might of inspiration,
and compelling it to seek its abiding-place in that boundless
realm which is the natural home of immortality. In every
remote period, and amongst the rudest tribes, we see this in-
stinct guiding the literature of mankind, seeking in the invisi-
ble a refuge for the noblest human needs, invoking the super-
natural, though it be but in horror, as an instinctive canon of
poetic art. The Divitia Commedia is the grandest aflfirmation
of this truth which human genius has yet produced. Dante's
eagle flight chafed within the limits of time and space; he
passed beyond them through the gates of death, and placed
his poem in the infinite. From this stupendous stage he con-
templates the world, he sees the nations like the tribes of old,
coming up one by one, an endless procession, to the judgment-
seat; he passes sentence on the rulers and the peoples, justly
but pitilessly; he uses without mercy that terrible scourge of
satire which the prophets wielded when the world was young;
he takes up Jacopone's rod, and in his hand it becomes a ser-
pent whose bite stings like fire. Science serves him as a
docile handmaiden ; his seer's eye dimly descries in coming
years the worlds that Newton and Columbus are to discover.
But his Muse is led b.y a loftier star than physical science or
philosophy. Religion and sorrow are his guides; these lead
him into the mystic sanctuary where only they may enter; they
initiate him into the cause of existence, the sanction of the de-
crees of conscience, the germ of future misery and happiness
contained in our merits or demerits here below, the final re-
sult of human actions. The study of human actions becomes
naturally thenceforth the one whose interest absorbs him above
all others, though he interweaves it with the most varied and
seemingly irrelevant ones. Standing beyond death he con-
ceives a plan of the philosophy of life, of universal science.
But though Dante's thoughts were steadily centred in death,

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 313

they bear no traces of tliat egotism which, as Ozanam says,
*' hides itself so frequently under the appearance of melan-
choly." Strong human sympathies still bound him to the
great heart of humanity, and drew him back to the scenes
where the fiery passions of his youth had found an outlet.
Ozanam feels so strongly this sympathetic current flowing
from Dante's soul that he claims him as the prophet of de-
mocracy and of the revolution of modem society.

" Doubtless," he says, " Dante borrowed from the publicists of his day many
of the arguments on which he supports the monarchy of the Holy Empire.
But the Empire, as he conceives it, is no longer that of Charlemagne. . . .
It is a new conception, reaching to two great things ; on one side to the
primitive Roman Empire, where the prince clothed with the tribune's power
represents in his triumph the plebeians conquering the patricians ; on the other,
the French monarchy raising itself by alliance with the communes on the
ruins of the nobility. The depositary' of power, even under the name of
Caesar, with the imperial diadem on his brow, is in Dante's eyes no more than
the immediate agent of the multitude, the level which renders all heads equal.
Amongst all priWleges, none is so odious to him as that of birth ; he shakes
feudalism to its base, and his rude polemics, in attacking hereditar)- honors, do
not spare hereditary possessions. After seeking for the regenerating principles
of a social philosophy in the highest regions of moral theology, he follows out
their deductions relentlessly to the most extreme and impracticable democratic
maxims."*

But if Ozanam proclaims Dante the precursor of modem
ideas, from liis having been the first who gave a moral, politi-
cal, and universal direction to the philosophical sciences, he is
careful to exonerate him from complicity in the excesses of
which our days are witness.

" He did not deify humanity by representing it as self-sufficing, -with nolight
but reason, no rule but its own will. . . . He saw that it was not all here be-
low, where it passes, as it were, in swarms ; he went first of all to seek it at
the end of the journey, where the innumerable pilgrims of life are gathered for
ever. It has been said of Bossuet that, with the rod of Moses in his hand, he
drove the generations to the tomb. It may be said of Dante that he awaits
them there with the scales of the last judgment. Leaning on the truths which
they should have believed, and the justice they should have served, he weighs
their works in the balance pf eternity. . , . Thus, with the idea Ot an eternal
destiny, iiiorality re-enters into historj- ; humanity, humiliated undei; the la\\

* Partie Ui. p. 3631

314 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

of death, rises up %\-ith the law of duty, and if we deny it the honors of an
arrogant apotheosis, we spare it the opprobrium of a brutish fatalism."*

After measuring the various points of contrast and analogy
which exist between Dante's philosophy and other systems,
ancient and modern, Ozanam comes to the question which
has engaged all the commentators of the poet for three centuries
— his orthodoxy.

"Protestantism," he says, "at its cradle felt the necessity of creating a
genealog)- which should link it to the Apostolic times, and justify in it the
accomplishment of those promises of infallibility which the Sa\Hour has left to
His church. ... It is not exacting in the matter of proofs ; a few embittered
words, dropped from the pen of a celebrated man on contemporary abuses,
suffice to place him at once in the catalogue of these pretended witnesses of the
truth. Dante could not escape this posthumous honor. . . . \'arious pas-
sages of his poem, ingeniously tortured, appeared, it was alleged, to contain
derisive aUusions to the holiest mysteries of the Catholic liturgy" (Par.
xxxiii. 12).

It was not unnatural that English lovers of Dante should
seize with avidity anything that struck them as evidence of
his Protestant affinities ; but if the Protestants of the sixteenth
century tried to claim him for their own, it was reserved to
the zealots of the nineteenth to make him out a freemason ;
M. Aroux has written a learned treatise on the subject, and
proved the charge of freemasonry to his own satisfaction.
The honor of originating the idea does not, however, rest
with him. Ozanam relates how, when, emancipated from the
fatal influence of the Seicentisti, Italian literature returned to
worthier traditions, the worship of the old poets of the father-
land was turned to account by the secret societies, who grafted
their religion and political theories upon it.

•'And in our own day, when the heads of the conquered party, worthy of all
respectful pity, sought refuge in England, the need of something to while
away the dreary leisure of exile, perhaps also the desire to recognize in some
Way Protestant hospitality, inspired the new system proposed by Ugo Foscolo,
and supported by M. Rossetti, not without a vast display of science and im-
agination." t

Witnesses, however, were forthcoming to avenge Dante and

» Panic iii. p. 367. t DanUtt Phil. Calk., p. 37a

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 3 1 5

rescue him from these profanations. Foscolo has found
learned contradictors in Italy (Cesare Balbo and the editors
of the Milanese edition of the Convito), and Schlegel, the
oracle of German criticism, has refuted exhaustively the para-
doxes of Rossetti.

The fierce invectives with which the exiled Florentine pur-
sues the Roman Court and certain Popes have furnished a
ground of suspicion against him to many ; but Ozanam
answers this ^harge by the obvious Catholic argument that
Papal impeccability is a totally distinct matter from Papal in'
fallibility. St. Bernard and St, Thomas of Canterbury head
the list of canonized saints who in evil days stood dauntlessly
forth to denounce the iniquities ot Popes and the corruption
of their courts. If Dante overstepped the bounds which the
filial reverence of these servants of the Church respected, we
must remember that he was not a saint, but a man of proud
and fiery temperament, swayed by strong passions, and self-
charged with a mission which exacted more severity than
mildness. Yet his violence, even in its fiercest paroxysms, is
acquitted of the slightest stain of heresy by those who hold
the right to judge it. Catholicism is not so careless of its
glories. The orthodoxy of Dante was defended and estab-
lished by no less an authority than Bellarmine in the seven-
teenth century. Three Popes accepted the dedication of the
Divina Commedia, Paul III., Pius IV., Clement XII., and the
Roman edition of 1791 was sanctioned by the same supreme
authority. Even in the poet's lifetime, the shafts he levelled
at contemporary corruption and abuses laid him open to the
charge of heresy, and an ancient tradition tells us how the
Roman Inquisition dealt with it. His poem, on its first ap-
pearance, was rigorously examined by the doctors of theology,
and certain Brothers-Minor, noting that passage where St.
Francis meets Dante, and asks for news ot the Franciscan
order, because for so long a time it has sent nobody to heaven,
took offence, and summoned the satirist betore the Inquisi*
tion.

3i6 Life and Works oj Ficdctic Ozanam.

" Dante appeared before the judges after vespers, and begged for a delay
until the morrow, that he might draw up his creed in writing, consenting, if he
erred in any point, to undergo the deserved punishment. He watched through
the night, and the next morning, at tierce, presented his credo, in the form of
a poem of 250 lines, wherein every article of the faith was separately treated.
The Inquisitor having read it in presence of his counsel, composed of
twelve masters in theology, dismissed the poet, and laughed at the brethren,
who were mightily astonished to see such a wonderful composition produced
in such short delay."*

This record is to be seen in the MS. loii of Riccardiana
at Florence, and, even admitting a doubt o^ its veracity, is
invaluable as proving what the contemporary estimate was ol
Dante.

Homer has been styled the theologian of pagan antiquity,

and Dante has been called in turn the Homer of Christian

times ; but the comparison, if it glorifies his genius, dishonors

his religion.

" The blind poet of Smyrna has been justly accused of lowering the gods too
near to man, while none better than the Florentine has known how to elevate
man and raise him up towards the Godhead. It is by this, by the purity, by the
immaterial character of his symbolism, by the infinite breadth of his concef>-
tion, that he leaves so far behind him all ancient and modern poets, and above
all Milton and Klopstock. If we would raise one of those comparisons which
fix in the memory two names associated to recall and define one another, we
may say, and it will be the lesutni of this study, that the Divine Comedy is
the literary and philosophical Somma of the Middle Ages, and Dante the St.
Thomas of poetry. " +

Thus Ozanam brings us back to the point from which he
started, to that fresco of Raphael's, where the laurel-crowned
figure, standing side by side with St. Thomas, first awoke his
curiosity and prompted the research which was to solve the
puzzle. Kow far he has succeeded in his task each one will
pronounce according to his individual judgment and sympa-
thies. For our part, we confess that in every line of the
august epic we see the philosophy of Dante, like all the phi-
losophy of the Middle Ages, ever the obedient handmaiden of
theology. Whether he penetrates into the mysteries of Crea-
don, or unravels the truths taught by the Church, or opens

• Ozanam's Purgatorio, p. 628 t Dante tt Cath. Phil., p. 381.

Life and Works of Frederic Ozaiiam. 317

the inspired writings of prophets and evangelists to gather in
their divine arcana rules and types and a voice to proclaim their
hidden meanings, we see ever shining on his page the serene
and dazzling light of a gigantic human intellect illuminated
by faith. His poem is a glorious psalm of worship, a voice
from the very heart of humanity chanting the praises of God;
all created things, ice and fire, abysses and floods, the trees
of the forest and the stars of the firmament, are called in to
swell the chorus; all through creation, in nature and beyond
it, in life and death, from the happy realms above, from the
desolate deeps below, the voice rin^s loud and clear like the
roar of many waters shouting out Hosannah ! And yet in the
midst of the glowing visions where the song resounds, through
mystic dreams and fiery shudderings and raptures of delight,
we never lose sight of the entrancing spectacle of a hum.an
soul, suffering, heroic, intense. Whatever be the scenes
through which we pass, whether they be full of tragic satire,
or pathos sweet as the breath of heaven, or tenderness pass-
ing the love of woman, we hear the chords attuned to the
■same dominant key, that of Dante's sublime and powerful
personality.

Ozanam has left us only an unfinished monument, a mere
fragment of an almost infinite design, yet there are few writers
whose works are less marred by a sense of incompleteness.
At times, no doubt, his genius rises higher than at others, and
flashes out in its maximum of power, but he never falls below
his habitual level of finely-balanced thought, true poetry, and
philosophy. He had the enthusiasm of a real poet, but it
never carried away his judgment; his thought was always
strong enough to bear the utmost weight of emotion without
being obscured or defaced; his style is finished as a cameo,
musical, delicate, and masterly ; the diction is invariably pure
and choice, though it occasionally sins from over-redundance
of imagery — his desire to express his idea perfectly leading
him sometimes to an exuberance of words ; for however ab-
sorbed he was in his subject, Ozanam never forgot that others

3i8 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

were listening who required explanation. His eloquence in
its most impulsive movements — and it is full of impulse — is
always free from exaggeration. He was preserved from this
by what, for want of a better word, we call taste, that delicate
instinct of the imagination which tolerates no excess, French
critics are fond of instituting a comparison between the style
of Ozanam and his two celebrated contemporaries, Berryer
and Montalembert; yet, except in their contrasts, it is diffi-
cult to see what there is to suggest it. The philosopher and
historian seldom reaches that triumphant energy that marks
the eloquence of the two political orators. His power is of a
ditTerent order altogether; it is j^enetrative and convincing
rather than dazzling, and lingers on the mind like the glow of
sunset long after the meteoric flash of the more brilliant stars
has died away.

CHAPTER XXVI.

1853.

And now we are on the threshold of the closing scene.
We are approaching that hour which puts the seal on every
hfe — that hour which, even on this side of the grave, is like
the opening of the Book through which the secrets of hearts
are revealed. It is always a mournful spectacle, though gene-
rally an instructive and sometimes a consoling one, to witness
the last great crisis of a human soul, to watch the light going
out, to listen to the changing accents of the well-known voice,
to note, it may be, those " lears of the brave and follies of the
wise " which come to mar the beauty and completenesr of the
final act, adding poignancy to our grief, and lingering in the
memory like a pain or a dim, distressing doubt. We L/ave no
such experience to fear from Ozanam. He will not disap-
point us in death, who in life was faithful to his noblest self.
Softly heroic the life had been all through, and now we shall
see the same gentle heroism enduring to the last.

All that he had loved in life he loves now with a warmer
tenderness and a clearer appreciation. In the days of his
boyhood he had gone through Italy enamored of lier beauty,
and singing her praises with the poetic fervor of a young
heart. He is going through the sunny land again, conscious
that the journey is the prelude to his entrance into the valley
of the shadow of death, and yet we hear him just as of old
bursting out into passionate delight as the scenes of familiar
beauty break once more on his sight. He forgets the cruel
throes ot disease, the exhausting languor that makes every step
a pain, on the way to Nice, and goes into ecstasies over

319

320 Life and Works o/ Frederic Ozanam.

"The road, of magic beauty, bordered with olive-trees and orange-trees all in
full bearing, lo say nothing of the pahiis that we saw at long distances waving
over some Roman ruin. Yet, admirable as this is, it seems nothing when you
arrive near the Antibes, and suddenly behold the great curtain of the maritime
Alps unfold itself and close in the horizon, mountains whose brow is crowned
with snow while their base is plunged in a shining sea. It is only then that
the Pyrenees and the coast of Biscay are conquered ! All creation is there,
with the majesty of the glaciers and the wealth of the tropical climes : oiive-
trees as large as our finest oaks, orange-trees growing in forests, oleanders
flowering wild in the dried beds o^ rivers, aloes and cactuses as in Sicily."

His heart exults in the beauty of God's beautiful world, and
he sees the hand of the Creator everywhere — in the grand
waving palms " that are worthy to be borne before our Saviour
on the day of His triumphal entry " ; in the glorious hills " that
are surely a bit of the terrestrial Paradise where God walked
and conversed with Adam." All the old memories and sym-
pathies are strong as ever as the time approaches for separa-
tion, and he dwells on them lovingly and gaily. " What was
there to prevent our fancying ourselves on the coast of Syria
in the time of the Crusades, especially when the battlements
of an old dungeon or some ancient chapel peeped above the
neighboring hill-tops ? " he says playfully to M. Cornudet,
and then goes on to describe how, although no swarthy Sara-
cen bore down on them to bar the way,

" Ces dames On\s wife and her mother) declare that, as we were ascending the
Esterelle, men armed with hatchets prowled for a whole hour about the car-
riage, casting terrible glances at it. If this fact should not appear to you suf-
ficient to constitute the robber episode which ought to be found in every
journey worth the name, I assure you it is amply completed by the multitude
of honest brigands who, under the name of inn keepers, hat in hand, have
been fleecing and despoiling us during these two hundred leag:ues. In order
that nothing should be wanting in our epopee, we came by sea from Genoa to
Leghorn, and that perfidious element treated us as so many heroes : the winds
were let loose, the billows rode over the deck, and Madame Ozanam's trunk
was so thoroughly soaked that on alighting at the hotel she was compelled to
make the finest exhibition of clothes hanging out to dry that has ever been
seen since the days when the Princess Nausicaa washed her linen."

The monuments of man's genius claim his admiration and
interest, as formerly, next to the works of God. Those of
Pisa fascinate him by their " young, virginal grace, which it is

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam 321

impossible to describe. The cathedral, an edifice of the
eleventh century, before the first Crusades — that is to say, the
creation of a ijeri(jd reputed barbarous, but which, after the
lapse of eight hundred years of civilization, the world is forced
to contemplate with admiration," inspired the traveller with
one of those lyrical outbursts that his intimate correspondence
is full of:

" When you enter the bronze gates, and, standing at the end of those five
naves divided by a forest of pillars, behold resplendent in the mosaic of the
vaulted roof the colossal figure of Christ, seated as He will appear on the last
day, upon a throne of glory between the Blessed Virgin and St. John, you feel
for one moment overpowered by the divine majesty, you recognize truly the
eternal Son of the Father, you rejoice that our Lord has allowed a people to
build Him a temple that is almost worthy of Him. The fear of God, the sense
of the nothingness of man, the legitimate pride of the Christian, all these emo-
tions are spontaneously awakened, and you understand those words of the
Psalmist : ' How beautiful are thy tabernacles. Lord God of Hosts ! ' "

The unrelenting rain which had spoiled and checked their
Spanisk tour followed them to Italy, and Ozanam congratu-
lates himself that there are at Pisa some places of resort which
ke can visit and enjoy under shelter from the torrents. " A
library of sixty thousand volumes gives me pretty nearly all I
want in the way of history and ecclesiastical and municipal
antiquities," he s; ys, and then relates, with that generous
pride in the kindness of others that was one of his character-
istics, how courteous and obliging everybody is in the said
library ; how the learned Professor Ferrucci has ensconced
him at a table in a comfortable corner free from draughts,
and how ger.ial and intelligent are all the authorities.

"We have, in fact, a little Athens here, and I am the more justified in call-
ing it by this name in that there are a round hundred of good Greek students.
But I must admit that these sons of Aristides and Philopoemen are less assidu-
ous at the schools than at the theatre, and have the name of not paying their
debts."

The mention of schools and scholars naturally calls up the
image of other seats of learning to which the exile's heart
turns yearningly.

32 2 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

" Ah ! my poor Sorbonne ! " he exclaims, with a sigh, " how often do my
thoughts go back to the blackened walls, the bleak courtyard, the studious,
begrimed halls which I have so often seen filled with the generous youth of
Paris ! Dear friend, next to the infinite consolations which a Catholic finds
at the foot of the altar, next to the joys of family life, I know no greater hap-
piness than that of addressing young men who have heart and intelligence."

He owns, as if confessing to a foolish weakness, that the
memory of this young, eager, sympathetic crowd is continu-
ally pulling his heart-strings back to Paris ; he asks for news
of the examinations, and " how the Baccalaureats are getting
on," with the tender interest of a man recalling the scenes of
his own youthful struggles in the learned Alma Mater. The
very thought of being able once more to ascend his chair,
and lay his hand on the vibrating crowd around it, stirs him
with an irrepressible thrill of delight. He dares not dwell on
the hope, but turns aside with a " Fiat ! it will be well, how-
ever it ends, for it will be as God wills. Volo quomodo vis,
volo qiiamdiu vis."

His pleasure in his friends, in their sympathy, their joys
and pursuits, is as keen as in the days when he was free to
share them all actively.

" I know not what God may ordain for us henceforth," he says to his old
colleague M. Lenormant, whose battle he had fought so bravely, " but I know
that in choosing our friends for us He has done quite enough for the honor
and happiness of our lives. Whatever bad opinion I have of myself, I cannot
believe that He has created me to do nothing, when He has made me ac-
quainted, one after another, with the grandest Christians of my time and the
most chosen souls. Their affection, as you truly say, supports and encourages
me ; it helps me to bear trials which are, indeed, tempered to my weakness."

He is away over the Atlantic in spirit with M. Ampere, ex-
cited by the stirring scenes through which the erudite traveller
passes, and which he describes in his letters home :

" I have stood with you in the midst of the prodigious activity of man, and
admired the strange aspects of surrounding nature, the flaming sunsets that
surpass those of Italy and Greece. You have given me friends, too, in the
new world as in the old ; through you I have penetrated into the very heart of
the University of Cambridge ; you have introduced me to men whom I
scarcely knew, and whom I now love — Everett, Agassiz, and, above all, th§

Life a?td Works of Frederic Ozanam. 323

poet Longfellow. I owe you a delightful hour in his cottage, with the book
of his poems in my hand ; thanks to your superior lights, which have been as
precious to me as your friendship, I have been able to judge the literature of
America at one stroke. I see it compelled to link itself to the old traditions
of Europe, and I admit that the ocean no longer divides us."

But the consolation which Ozanam gave thanks for above
all others was the fervent activity of the Conferences which
he found established in the various places he passed through.

"Our little Society of St. Vincent de Paul has a great share in the pre-occu-
pations and consolations of my journey," he says to M. Cornudet, writing
from Pisa. " 1 saw the presidents at Marseilles and T^oulouse, where the re-
spective Conferences number two hundred and four hundred members. I saw
also the president of Nice, a man full of zeal, and as amiable as he is pious.
But what charmed me above all, what fills me with hope for the future of
Italy, are the Conferences of Genoa, all so fer\'ent and so discreet, amidst the
religious perils of the country ; the president of these Conferences understands
the work as if he had been engaged in it with us these twenty years, and he
goes about propagating it with indefatigable activity in the duchy of Genoa
and in Tuscany. . . , See the designs of God ! In 1847 I passed through
Tuscany, and became acquainted with some zealous and influential men ; I
gave them the rules of the Society, and I left them determined to do some-
thing. But no one could see the use of it in a countrj' that was already so
good, so Christian, and so rich in old established charities. The revolution
came, however, and ploughed up these soft soils ; its ploughshare tore up many
institutions that only held on by dry roots. And lo ! we now behold a new
proselytism multiplying our Conferences : the ecclesiastical authorities lend it
their countenance, religious orders commend it, fervent laymen become en-
rolled in it. The Conferences are flourishing at Leghorn and at Pisa ; they
are beginning to prosper at Florence and Pontadera ; they are being establish-
ed at Prato, about to be so at Volterra and Porto Ferrajo ; here then we
shall have seven families of St. Vincent de Paul in this fair Tuscan land,
where Catholicism was languishing, stifled, as it were, under the golden
chains of Josephism. But the most important thing of all, and that which
touches me most, is that the primitive spirit of our Society has communicated
itself so wonderfully to our new brethren. I have met with all the simplicity
and cordiality of our early beginnings amongst them. Don't picture to your-
self solemn, cold meetings of old parishioners in black silk skull-caps. Not
that the old are excluded ; but I see with pleasure a great efHuence of young
men, students, merchants' clerks, sons of noble families, university professors,
and the draper round the comer, all elbowing each other, and all led by first-
rate presidents. I cannot tell you how attached they all are to the centre of
the Society, nor what an amount of consideration they have shown to the
vice-president of the Conseil-Geneial.'"

324 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

The Conference of Florence was a subject of special joy
and edification to Ozanam.

" In this capital of Josephism," he says, "a learned canon,* whose mother
is lady of honor to the Grand Duchess, devotes all his zeal to the propagation
of our confraternity. I had the consolation of assisting at one of their meet-
ings, as I did at those of our con/tires of London and Burgos. Tears of joy
start to my eyes when at these great distances I meet our little family, always
little by the obscurity of its works, but great through the blessing of God upon
it. The tongues are different, but it is always the same friendly clasp of the
hand, the same brotherly cordiality, and we can recognize each other by the
same sign as the early Christians : ' See how they love one another !' "

He is delighted with tlie great concourse of people in the
churches and at the Divine offices, even on week-days, at Pisa,
where, " so different from our France, one sees not only des
gefts cotnme il faui. but workmen, peasants, coachmen, and
market-women in such numbers that one has to elbow one's
way through them to get to a seat on one of the benches that
replace our prie-dieu." But this consoling manifestation of
faith does not bUnd him to other facts. He sees Protestantism
making tremendous efforts in Italy, " and meeting with the
sympathies that it already excited in the sixteenth century.
There is a great liberty for publishing and selling," he adds;
" I have seen translations of the very worst French books
figuring on the stalls of the little book-pedlars at Florence.
The clergy are frightened, and fright does good, inasmuch as
it wakes them up. The Church sees that she is on the eve
of recommencing a life of struggle, and the near approach of
the combat renders possible now works that six years ago
would have been considered inopportune."

Genoa offers the same varied character to his observation.

" In this most democratic of cities I found pretty much the same physiognomy
as in Paris at the end of 1S48. The book -shops and stalls expose for sale the
most audacious pamphlets ; Protestantism, Fourierism, and every description
of socialism placard their special propaganda. . . . On the other hand, there
is a great awakening of Catholicism in this country, which has been so long

•Guido Palagi, a canon of the cathedral, who died in September, 1871. He was followed to
the grave by the entire population of Florence, whom he had edified by his heroic virtues dur-
ing a long life.

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 32 c

asleep, a serious effort to resist the propaganda of the enemy ; there are five
Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul, countinjj those of the suburbs ; and at the
head of them are men of talent and activity. Here at Pisa the Revolution
seems to have passed over the heads of the people, and to have acted only on
the upper classes. There is a great deal of faith amongst the people, at least
if one may judge from the churches overflowing \s ith men even on the week-
days. In the middle classes, and amongst the students, Voltairianism is rife,
but the case is different amongst men of letters and savants ; many of these
are still Italians of the last century, minding only their own business, abusing
the priests every now and then, but performing their duties as Christians.
Others are converts, men of noble minds, open to all that is generous in the
new ideas, but reduced to silence by Austrian bayonets."

An incident occurred in connection with the foundation of
the Conferences in Tuscany which Ozanam, with characteristic
modesty, refrains from mentioning even in his intimate letters
home. It was true that when he arrived at Pisa he found the
Society was known there, and already counted many admi-
rers, who were eager to propagate it ; but their efforts had
been crushed in the bud by the Grand- Ducal Government, in
whose eyes the whole thing bore a dangerous and suspicious
character. The struggle to overcome this opposition was all
but given up when Ozanam arrived at Pisa, and he at once
took zealous steps towards reviving the movement. His
name carried weight with it; for he was well known, even
celebrated, in the country on account of his work on Dante,
which had been enthusiastically applauded, and translated
several times into Italian. The Dowager Grand-Duchess
heard of his arrival, and coming one day to Pisa, sent word
to him to wait upon her the same evening. He was extreme-
ly ill just then, and it required an heroic effort to rise from his
sick-bed, and betake himself in full dress to a royal audience;
but no personal sacrifice could deter Ozanam when there was
a chance of furthering the cause of charity. He got up, and
was at the palace at the appointed hour. The Grand- Duchess
was a large-hearted woman, possessing a cultivated mind and
a genuine zeal for good works. She received the pale, dark-
eyed Frenchman with kindness and sympathy; but she was
strongly prejudiced against his work, and bluntly told him so;

326 Life afid Works of Frederic Ozanam.

adding that the Grand-Duke believed the Society of St. Vin-
cent de Paul to be a hotbed of socialism and political intrigue,
and that he never could be induced to sanction its presence
in his States unless certain men, whom she mentioned, were
dismissed from amongst the members, Ozanam answered
these accusations with respectful boldness ; he told the story
of the origin of the little confraternity, and how from the very
starting iis founders had directed that it should be a work of
charity, from which the political element should be rigorously
excluded ; this primary condition of the Society made it in-
cumbent on them to receive indiscriminately any person who
presented himself, provided he was an honorable man and a
Christian. He spoke with great warmth and all the glow of
an enthusiasm purified, but not abated, by suffering and the
approach of death. The Grand-Duchess listened with pro-
found attention, and a few days later the Conference at Flo-
rence received formal notice of the sanction of the Govern-
ment.

Ozanam was induced to speak at the opening stance, and
his speech, delivered of course in Italian, was considered so
fine that it was printed in all the newspapers next day. He
was annoyed beyond measure, and declared he never would
have spoken had he foreseen such a result. " It is entirely
contrary to the spirit of the Society, which is to work in
obscurity and make no noise," he said. Soon after, they again
begged him to address the Conference ; he only consented on
the express condition that the offence was not repeated. The
next day, however, several important members came to en-
treat him to release them from the promise ; he resisted their
persuasions for three days, but at last yielded to the prayer of
his confessor, who assured him the speech, if circulated, would
probably lead to the formation of a Conference at Loreto.
He gave permission for one hundred copies to be struck off;
but this was extended to twelve hundred, a piece of treachery
which the orator did not quite forgive, until he found that it
had led to the forming of Conferences at Macerata, Porto Far-

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. ^2]

rajo, and in Sardinia, where the speech of the " celebrated
French Professor" produced a great effect.

The success of this effort seemed to give new life to Ozanam,
and, in spite of the dreary, disappointing winter, with its eter-
nal rain, he gradually gained strength towards the spring, and
with it his hopes of a possible recovery revived.

•' They don't disguise from me the fact that my illness is slow and difficult
to cure," he says to M. Ampere, in the first days of April ; "but as there is
now no fever, and as I still keep by me two excellent doctors-^leep and appe-
tite—they give me good hopes, and allow me to think of returning home by
the end of April, and even to talk of resuming my coiirs on the 15th of May !
Meantime we have had some painful hours and great anxiety. All agreed that
a warm and dry climate was absolutely essential for me, and we have been
living for over sixty days in a continued down-pour of rain, which is constantly
calling up these lines of Dante :

' lo sono al terzo cerchio della piova
Etema, maledetta, fredda e grave ;
Regolae quality mai non I'fe nuova.'

" It is possible to read the Inferno in spite of the rain, but one cannot carry
one's dreams to the Campo Santo, where the torrents are enough to wash out
all that remains to one of the history of Job. . . . We stay at home by the
chimney-comer ; but consolations are not wanting in this home which trial has
visited. You know what an angel of goodness dwells therein, and what a
merry imp enlivens it. . . . Moreover, God, who is the best of friends, never
abandons those whom he tries. At this moment He has granted me a mental
serenity which is not usual to me. In this peaceful city, in the midst of this
life of rest, I seem to taste the sweets of family affection more deeply, to caress
the memories of friendship more at my ease ; I have leisure to look into my
own heart, and I find much to correct there ; but I think I find peace and faith
there, and this suffices for many moments of pure happiness."

We repeat it : {tw men, out of the ranks of the saints, were
more diligent in giving thanks than Ozanam. It was a
favorite exercise of his to recall, in meditation, all the graces
and mercies he had received from his childhood upwards, and
to return thanks for them one by one. On the day of his
marriage, when he took his young wife home, he told her how
he had suffered from doubts when a boy, and how he had
been delivered from them, and sworn to devote himself ever
after to the defence and service of God's truth ; he then asked
if she would join him daily in giving thanks for this particular

328 Life and Works of Frcdrric Ozanam.

mercy; and every niglit from tliat day forth, until the last
that he spent on earth, they sent up their act of thanksgiving
together.

In the midst of his keenest sufferings, gratitude, the sense
of the alleviations and blessings granted him, rose above every
other feeling. His letters all through this painful winter are
like canticles of thanksgiving :

" You know her whom God has given me for my visible gnardian angel;
you have seen her at work," he writes to an old friend from rainy Pisa; "but
since my illness has become serious, you can have no conception of the resources
she has discovered in her heart, not only to relieve but to cheer me ; with what
ingenious, patient, indefatigable tenderness she surrounds my life, guessing,
anticipating every wish. Happily God gives her strength for it ; she and my
little Marie are in perfect health just now. My mother-in-law has also made her
pilgrimage to Rome without any mishap. We hear from her often, and also
from my brothers and many friends. We have some kind and agreeable
visitors who bring a little new life into our solitude, and we have good and
beautiful books in abundance. So you see that Divine Providence, while try-
ing us, does not forsake us. God treats us mercifully ; and if there are days
of despondency, there are moments too of exquisite enjoyment between my
wife and my child. I know that my malady is serious, but not utterly hope-
less ; that I shall take a long time to recover, and that I may never recover;
but I try to abandon myself lovingly to the will of God, and I repeat — more
with the lips than with the heart, I fear ! — Volo quod vis, volo quamdiu vis,
volo quia vis. "

One day, at San Jacopo,* he took a piece of paper and
wrote down, in the form of a prayer, an enumeration of the
many " little kindnesses " he had received from God.

" We are not sufficiently grateful for God's little benefits. We thank Him
for ha\-ing created and redeemed us, and given us good parents, and a wife,
and beloved children, and for so often giving us Himself in the^Sacrament of
the Altar. But besides these powerful graces, which support, so to speak, the
woof of our life, how many delicate graces are wrought into the tissue ! There
was the steady comrade I met during my first year at college, and who edified
instead of corrupting me ; there was M. Ampere's paternal welcome, and M.
de Chateaubriand's advice to me not to go to the theatre. And then, smaller
things than these, an inspiration that prompted me to go and see my poor on a
day when I was in a bad humor, and sent me home ashamed of my imaginary
woes by the side of the appailing reality of theirs. How often has some insig-
nificant circumstance, an importunity, a visitor that bored me, and whom I

• It was to this village on the sea, near Leghorn, that that grand soul, Mrs. Seton, came
yritk her ^-ing favaband. They remained there a month ; she left it a widow.

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanain. 329

wished at Hong-kong, been the occasion later of enabling me to do good to
some one."

He forced himself to write in a comparatively hopeful
tone, but he had in reality little or no hope of ultimate re-
covery.

" During the last three weeks of Lent," he says to M. Ampere, " I was pre-
paring myself seriously for the final sacrifice. It cost nature something, yet
through God's help it seemed to me that I was beginning to detach myself
from everything except from those who love me, and whom I can love else-
where than here below. But my poor wife prayed so hard, and got so many
prayers said, that I begin to revive, and without being cured I may venture to
hope for a cure. The worst of it is, that I attach myself again at once to life,
and all the vanities of life. According as I begin to think seriously of seeing
Paris again, I think of my work, of my schemes, and — must I own it ? — of the
opinion of the learned and the public ! This draws me off to the circulating
library — another piece of vanity ; I read the Revue des Deux Monc/es, . . .
and I ask myself if you could not find a page there to devote to my Poetes
Franciscains. But would it be possible for you to find time to occupy your-
self with these beggars ? And yet they deserve something at your hands, for
you know what your friends Dante and Giotto owe to St. Francis. . . . My
poor Poetes * have found a cordial welcome here. Cardinal Mai was greatly
taken with the life of Jacopone, and sent me many kind complimentary mes-
sages. . . . See what comes of a half-and-half convalescence I Perhaps to-
morrow a relapse will come and make short work of my literary projects, but
to-day the stray sunbeam that is awakening the flowers wakes up my hopes
and ambitions too."

He said truly it was but a stray beam, a passing respite in
the struggle. The malady was working its way slowly but
inexorably ; the improvement that showed itself from time to
time was only a delusive one, a transient alleviation caused
by some new remedy, or a change of climate, or sometimes
by an effort of the vigorous will asserting its supremacy over
the exhausted body. Ozanara underwent every remedy that
was proposed, often even when he had no belief in their effi-
cacy ; his cheerfulness, his unselfish thought for those around
him, enabled him to disguise his own hopelessness, in order
not to destroy the faint hopes of others. Prayer and medita-
tion on Divine tilings were the fountains from which he drew

• The Poetes Franciscains had come out in detached articles in the Correspondant, and were
already widely known, but they were published in a collective form only about this tinie.

^;^o Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam.

his serenity and courage. He had loved the Scriptures
above every other book all his life ; it had been his practice
from boyhood to read a portion of the Gospels every day; he
called this his " daily bread " ; he generally read the Bible in
Greek from an old edition that he was fond of. Now that
evil days were come, and that he was called upon to prove
himself, he remained faithful to this habit of his life. Every
morning, the first thing on awaking, he gave half an hour to
reading the Bible, and at the end of his meditation he would
note down the texts which had penetrated him most during
the course of it, in order that he might refer to them, and rest
his mind on them throughout the day. He derived such ex-
traordinary comfort and sustenance from this practice, that it
occurred to him he miglit in his helplessness still render a last
service to other invalids by pointing out to them the pas-
sages that had soothed and nourished his own soul in the
course of his illness. His wife gladly acquiesced in the sug-
gestion, and every morning wrote down some pages from his
dictation. These have since been put together and publish-
ed under the tide of Le Livre des Malades. On the 23d of
April, his birthday, and the anniversary of his marriage, he
wrote in his own hand the following lines:

"I said : In the midst of my days I shall go to the gates of hell ; I sought
for the residue of my years.

" I said : I shall not see the Lord God in the land of the living. I shall be-
hold man no more, nor the inhabitant of rest.

" My generation is at an end ; and it is rolled away from me as a shepherd's
tent. My life is cut off as by a weaver ; whilst I was yet but beginning he cut
me off ; from morning even to night Thou wilt make an end of me.

"I hoped till morning ; as a lif)n so hath he broken all my bones ; from
morning even to night Thou wilt make an end of me.

''I will cry like a young swallow ; I will meditate like a dove ; my eyes are
weakened looking upward. Lord, I suffer violence ; answer Thou for me.

" What siiall I say, or what shall he answer for me, whereas he himself
hath done it ? I will recount to thee all my years in the bitterness of my
soul.

" This is the beginning of the canticle of Ezechias. I know not whether
God will permit me to apply to myself the end of it. 1 know that I complete
to-day my fortieth year, more than half the ordinary term of man's life. I

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 331

know that I have a young and beloved wife, a charming child, excellent
brothers, a second mother, many friends, an honorable career, studies brought
precisely to the point when they might serve as the foundations of a work long
dreamed of. And ye^ am a prey to a long and grievous malady, which is
the more dangerous that it hides perhaps a complete exhaustion. Must I then
leave all these things that Thou Thyself hast given me, Lord ? Wilt Thou
not be satisfied with a portion of the sacrifice ? Which of my irregular affec-
tions must I immolate to Thee ? Wilt Thou not accept the holocaust of my
literary self-love, of my academical ambitions, of even my projects of work,
wherein mayhap there mingled more of pride than of pure zeal for truth ? If
I sold half my books and gave the price to the poor, and, confining myself to
the bare duties of my position, were to consecrate the rest of my life to visit-
ing the indigent, teaching apprentices and soldiers, wouldst Thou be satisfied,
Lord, and wouldst Thou leave me the happiness of growing old beside my
wife, and of finishing the education of my child ?

" Perhaps, Lord, Thou dost not so will it. Thou dost not accept these in-
terested offers ; Thou dost reject my holocausts and my sacrifices. It is myself
Thou dost ask. ' It is written in the beginning of the book that I must do
Thy will,' and I said, ' Lord, I come ! '

" I come, if Thou callest me, and I have no right to complain. Thou hast
given forty years of live to a creature who entered this world sickly, fragile,
destined to die ten times, if ten times he had not been rescued by the tender-
ness and intelligence of a father and mother. Let not my people be scandal-
ized if Thou dost not see good now to work a miracle in order to save
me ! . . . Five years ago Thou didst bring me back almost from death, and
was not this delay granted me to do penance and become better ? Ah ! the
prayers that were sent up to Thee then were heard. \\Tiy should those that
are being offered now, and in so far greater number, on my behalf, be lost ?
Perhaps Thou wilt answer them. Lord, in another way. Thou wilt give me
courage, resignation, peace of soul, and those ineffable consolations that
accompany Thy real presence. Thou wilt enable me to find in illness a source
of merit and of blessings, and these blessings Thou wilt cause to fall on my
wife and my child — on all those to whom my labors perchance would have
been less useful than my sufferings. If I express the years cf my life with
bitterness before Thee, it is because of the sins that have sullied them ; but
when I consider the graces that have enriched them, I look back upon them.
Lord, with gratitude to Thee.

" If Thou shouldst chain me to this sick-bed for the days that I have yet to
live, they would be too short to thank Thee for the days that I have lived.
Ah ! if these pages be the last I ever write, may they be a hymn to Thy good-
ness ! "

Such were the outpourings in which Ozanam's soul sought
comfort amidst the cruel distress of bodily sufferings. But he
did not force himself to dwell exclusively in sublime and
solemn thoughts. When a respite from pain restored his

;^2~ Life and Works of Ftcdcric Ozanatn.

strength a little he seized the opportunity to send letters to
absent friends, full of the old brightness.

" I am deeply touched by your kind reproaches," he says to the Marquis de
Salvo, in one of these breathing-spaces, " but assuredly I should not have de-
served them if my pen were as ready as my heart ; if my thoughts, which are
so often at the Rue d'Angouleme, could transform themselves into a letter and
fly to you on white wings. But, alas ! those poor thoughts have lost their
wings, if ever they had any, and this forced inaction weighs heavily on my spirit.
What little verve was left me I have spent on Ampere, whom it is my interest
to conciliate in his quality of Academician, and to jiersuade that I have not
sunk quite to the level of the beast ! I have exhausted all my topics with him
too. . . . My wife adores this countr}-, but she is, above all, in love with the
fishermen and their pretty barks with lateen sails : she has made a vow that
if I recover, we should sell our books and buy a boat, and go off singing with
the Italian coral-fishers along the coasts of Sicily and Sardinia. Luckily ( did
not go partners in the vow ; I hold to fatherland, and I suspect that the first
sail that bears me away will be set towards France."

M. de Salvo was a Sicilian gentleman long resident in
Paris. He had made Ozanam's acquaintance when the latter
was known to few of the great world, and, with that instinct
which enables cultivated minds to recognize genius before
fame has made it patent, he held out his hand to the young
Professor, prophesying that he would one day be a great man.
Ozanam was for years a constant and honored guest in the
saion of the Marquise de Salvo, and also in those of Madame
Swetchine and Madame Recamier, where he met the elite of
social as well as intellectual celebrities. M, Ampere the
father had presented him to Madame Recamier when he was
a student in Paris, but Ozanam seldom went to her house ;
and when she playfully reproached him with this, he said, " I
am too young yet for such learned and wise company, ma-
dame; when I am a man, in seven years hence, I will return
and pay my respects to you very often, if you permit me."
When he did return to Paris as a married man, one of his
earliest visits was to the charming recluse of the Abbaye-aux
Bois. " Ah, so you have kept your promise ! " she exclaimed
laughingly when he appeared; "it is just seven years since

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanam. 333

your last visit to me ! " And so it was j Ozanam had forgot-
ten the promise, but he had kept it.

He had become acquainted at Pisa with a Jew who had re-
cently embraced Christianity at the cost of many sacrifices,
and had still much to contend with. Ozanam was deeply in-
terested in him, and when the convert left Italy he gave him
some valuable introductions to, friends in Paris, and corre-
sponded with him, making it a duty to sustain and cheer him
by letters suffused with his own vigorous and joyous faith.

" It would have been a delight to me to write to you much sooner, had I not
been too weak to accomplish it," he says. " But the hand of God has touched
me, I believe, as it touched Job, Ezechias, and Tobias, not unto death, but
unto a prolonged trial. I have not, unfortunately, the patience of those just
men ; I am easily cast down by suffering, and I should be inconsolable for my
weakness if I did not find in the Psalms those cries of sorrow which David
sends forth to God, and which God at last answers by granting him pardon
and f>eace. Oh ! my friend, when one has the happiness to have become a
Christian, it is a great honor to be bom an Israelite, to feel one's self the son
of those patriarchs and prophets whose utterances are so beautiful that the
Church has found nothing finer to place on the lips of her children. During
many weeks of extreme languor the Psalms have never been out of my hands.
I was never wearied of reading over and over those sublime lamentations, those
flights of hope, those supplications full of love which answer to all the wants
and all the miseries of human nature. It is nearly three thousand years since
a king composed those songs in his days of repentance and desolation, and we
stiU find in them the expression of our deejDest anguish and the consolation of
our sorrows. The priest recites them daily ; thousands of monasteries have
been founded in order that these psalms might be chanted at every hour, aim
that this voice of supplication might never be silent. The Gospel alone is sujje-
rior to the hymns of David, and this only because it is their fulfilment, because
all the yearnings, all the ardors, all the holy impatience of the prophet find
their accompUshment in the Redeemer issued of his race. So great is the
bond between the two Testaments that the Redeemer Himself had no name
dearer to Him than that of Son 0/ David. The two blind men of Jericho
called Him by it, and I often cry out to him with them, ' Son of David, have
mercy on us ! ' "

The warmth of the soft Italian summer by the seaside
brought a perceptible improvement to Ozanam's health he
was once more induced to believe himself really better.

" I take long walks," he teUs M. Ampere, at the end of June. " I pass my

334 -^{/^ (tfid Works of Frederic Ozanam.

morning on the rocks, watching the sea, until I have learned the play of its
waves by heart. I am gaining strength but slowly, which was to be expected
after so severe a crisis ; but if July and August, who pass for being great phy-
sicians, treat me well, I shall be cured this autumn."

The old passion for work came back, strong as ever, with
the shght return of strength.

"Since I find myself equal to thinking and writing, I am writing my Odys-
sey, my journey to Burgos, in spite of Madame Ozanam's protestations," he
says, with that touching waywardness of invalids, who rebel against an autho-
rity rendered powerless by love. " Don't scold ; I had a whole portfolio full
of notes nearly all ready, and then legends, songs bought in the streets, and
finally the poem of the Cid. ... I have even made my peace with 'my impla-
cable guardian by reading to her a certain page of my work where she recog-
nized the merry row of the Spanish kitchens."

In the midst of his many consolations, there was one dis-
appointment which Ozanam felt keenly : he had failed to es-
tablish a Conference at Siena. It was all the more to be
regretted because the Grand Duke had recently divided the
University of Pisa, and placed half of it at Siena, which thus
became the centre of a young population grievously in want
of some moral resource in the shape of healthy and interesting
occupation. The effeminate character of tlie young Tuscans
themselves, added to local prejudices against the Society, had,
however, frustrated every attempt to import it there up to the
present. Ozanam could not be persuaded but that a vigorous
personal effort might overcome these obstacles, so he deter-
mined to go to Siena himself. His wife and medical advisers
entreated him not to compromise the improvement in his
health by the fatigue and excitement of the step, but he
silenced this argument by asking, " What better use can we
make of the health God gives us than by exercising it in His
service ? " He certainly did not spare it on this occasion.
During the four days that he remained at Siena he worked
indefatigably at the business of his mission; but it was all to
no purpose. Padre Pendola, who was his friend, and perhaps
the most influential man in the city, being head of all the
deaf and dumb institutions in Tuscany, and of the College of

Life a/id Works of Frederic Ozanam. 335

Tolomei, as well as Professor in the University — even Padre
Pendola refused to be convinced. " It is not possible," he
repeated to the Frenchman's pleadings ; " the young nobles
of Tuscany are too soft, too idle; you never could get them
to visit the poor." He spent his last evening in trying to
persuade the Padre, but, beyond a warmly-expressed hope
that the future might see the scheme realized, the latter re-
mained unmoved, and Ozanam left him more downcast than
he had been in the whole course of his illness. " I am no
longer good for anything; God will not deign to make use
of me any more," he said, when he came home tired and
crestfallen ; and he confessed it was only the hope, amount-
ing to certainty, that he would have succeeded in rendering a
last service to the poor which had enabled him to undertake
the journey.

This was at the end of June. They went on to Antignano,
a little village overlooking the sea, and thej-e Ozanam deter-
mined to make a final effort. He wrote to Padre Pendola,
adjuring him to yield to his entreaties and take the cause of
his beloved confraternity in hand :

"... All that you have done for myself and my little family touched me
less, Reverend Father, than the hope you held out to me at the last in favor
of St. Vincent de Paul. This dear Society is also my family. Next to God,
it was the means of preserving my faith after I left my good and pious
parents. I love it, therefore, and cling to it with all my heart ; it has been a
joy to me to see the good seed growing and prospering in Tuscan soil.

"Above all, I have seen it do so much good, sustain so many young men in
the path of virtue, and inspire a smaller number with such wonderful zeal i
We have Conferences at Quebec and in Mexico. .We have them at Jerusalem.
We most certainly have one in Paradise, for during the twenty years that we
have ejisted at least a thousand members have taken the road to a better
world. How, then, is it possible that we should not have one at Siena, which
is called the antechambet- 0/ Paradise ? How is it possible that in the city of
Our Blessed Lady a work whose chief patroness she is should not succeed ?
. . . You have amongst your children many who are rich. Reverend Father —
oh 1 what a salutary lesson, how strengthening for those soft young hearts, to
show them the poor, to show them Jesus Christ, not in pictures painted by
great masters or on altars resplendent with gold and light, but to show them
Jesus Christ and His wounds in the persons of the poor ! We have often
talked together of the weakness, the effeminacy, the inanity of even Christian

336 Life and Works of Frederic Ozatiam.

men amongst the nobility of France and Italy ; but I am satisfied this arises
from a want in their education. There is one thing they have not been taught ;
there is one thing they are only acquainted with by name, and which we must
have seen others suffer fiom in order to learn how to bear it ourselves when,
sooner or later, our turn comes. This one thing is sorrow, privation, want.
These young seigneurs ought to know what hunger and thirst and the destitu-
tion of a naked garret mean. They ought to see fellow-creatures in misery,
distress — sick children, little ones crying with hunger. They ought to see
them that tliey may love them. Either the spectacle would make their hearts
beat with awakened pulses or they are a lost generation. But we should never
believe in the death of a young Christian soul. ' She is not dead, but sleep-
eth.' Dear and estimable friend, I send you, in the Bulletin of the Society,
some excellent instructions on the '■formation of Conferences in houses of edu-
cation.' Assuredly your experience needs not to be enlightened. . . . Soon
your best young men, divided into little batches of three and four, and accom-
panied by a master, will be nimbly ascending the poor man's stairs, and you
will see them coming home sad and happy — sad at the sight of the wretched-
ness they have seen, happy at having even ever so little relieved it. Some will
go about it coldly, perhaps, without zeal or intelligence ; others, on the con-
trary, will take fire at the work, and will pass on their heat to places where no
Conferences yet exist, or they will rekindle the warmth of those that are al-
ready in existence, . . . and out of all this good a portion will be taken, and
added to the crown which God is preparing for Padre Pendola, but which He
will give him, I earnestly hope, as late as possible.

" And now it dawns on me that I am practising the old French proverb,
Gtos yeaft vent precher son cure! No, no, my Father, it is not I who am
preaching ; it is you, your example, your charity that are preaching to me, and
bidding me leave this good work confidently in your hands."

Ozanam waited a fortnight iux an answer to this letter ; it
came then, brief and pregnant : " My dear friend, I founded
yesterday, the Feast of St. Vincent de Paul, two Conferences,
one in my college and one in the town."

He was very happy after this. Everything amused and
pleased him. He was full of sympathy with the joys of life
that were opening out to others, while they were swiftly pass-
ing away from him. A friend writes to announce his ap-
proaching marriage, and Ozanam answers gaily:

"Hal ha! so he is caught at last, the impregnable! The free heart has
been taken captive and put in chains — silken and golden chains, bonds that
possess eveiything to charm the eyes and the ears, the imagination and the
reason. The good fairies who destined him this fair companion took care to
load her with their fairy gifts ; they crowned her with all the graces ; no

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanani. 337

wonder the proud freeman capitulated ! . . . You desen-ed to meet with one
of those souLs whose society constitutes the joy and the honor of our destiny.
Such meetings are rare here below, and only those who have experienced their
blessedness have a right to speak of them ; and so I congratulate you. I re-
joice, as at a good omen, over the name of Amelie, by which you will call
your wife. Is it after us also that you choose the 23d for the day of your
wedding ? The 23d brings luck."

His playful appeal to M. Ampere for an alms to his " beg-
gars " in the Revue des Deux Mondes had not been made in vain.
A brilliant review of the Poeies Franciscaitis appeared in that
periodical in June, and was a source of great pleasure to
Ozanam, in whom the author was still strong enough to be
keenly alive to an enlightened criticism.

" You have far surpassed my hopes ; you have overpowered rae and my poor
Franciscans," he says to the critic. " I must thank you in the name of those
dear beggars, who come to life again under your touch, and whom you paint
better in this brief sketch than I in my long gallery. Your three pages have
the perfume of that convent garden which you describe with the jessamine
creeping along the wall. Amelie and I, being impartial judges in the case,
have agreed that this short article is one of your most exquisite touches. I
must say that your word of regret for the absent Professor touched something
deep)er than self-love, and had an accent that went to my very heart. ... A
certain Padre Frederic, himself a Franciscan, and a poet greatly admired at
Florence, is going to publish a translation of the little volume, and, from the
silence of his cell in Ara Coeli, the General of the Order has addressed his
thanks to me with a diploma, which is not the least precious of my titles. He
'places me on the list of the benefactors of the Franciscan family, and associates
me to the merits of the Frlres-Mineurs, who work and pray for all the
world."

He had looked forward, while it was possible, to following
up his candidature for the Institute this summer, on his return
to Paris, but in spite of the rally, which still maintained itself,
he saw it was vain to cling to the hope.

" A hermit of Montenero has no business to think of the Academy of In-
scriptions," he says good-humored ly to M. Ampere. "In making up my mind
to remain in Italy, I necessarily gave up the chance of canvassing for the
venerable M. Pardessus' /a ?//^«z7. . . . Moreover, in a moment of such solemn
import, when all other questions of the future hang upon the supreme question
of my health, when I am asking God to grant me life for the sake of my wfe
and child, it seems to me that there would be a kind of temerity in asking for
anything superfluous, for what flatters my literarj' self-love. It seems to me

338 Life a?id Works of Frederic Ozanam.

that I ought to wait humbly on Providence until it is decided whether I am to
be cured or not, and if God permits me to resume my career, then I may legiti-
mately aspire to those honors which would put the crown upon it."

He continued to work at his Odyssey, as he called it, al-
though his weakness had greatly increased after his removal
to Antignano ; he could only write a few lines at a time,
being compelled to rest on his sofa during the intervals. The
closing pages of this exquisite narrative are almost the last he
ever wrote. By the time he had finished them he was no
longer able to hold a pen, except to write down some fugitive
thoughts and short prayers which his wife was anxious to pre-
serve. Up to the end of July he was able to walk out a little
in the evening, and to go to Mass every morning. The
church was at only a few minutes' distance from the little villa
where he lived. It was in the fortress, a remnant of those
stormy ages when the blue Mediterranean was ploughed up by
the ships of the Saracen, and its peaceful shores turne4 into
bloody battle-fields. Ozanam had been the object of many
flattering tokens from the highest personages during his stay
in Tuscany. He had been made a member of the Academy
of La Trusca simultaneously with Count CesareBalbo; all
the social and learned notabilities had sought him out, anxious
to testify their admiration and regard. He was grateful for
this, but indifferent to it. He had always rather avoided
than sought the notice of the great ones of the earth, and now
that death was casting its vivid light over the vanities of life,
these attentions became irksome and distasteful Xo him. He
avoided receiving visitors of rank when it was possible. If
the Prince X. drove up to the villa in his fine equipage and
requested " the honor of making the great savanfs acquain-
tance," Ozanam would send a courteous message excusing
himself on the plea of his extrejTie exhaustion ; but if, the
same evening, as it once happened, a poor young man walked
in the dust and heat all the way from Leghorn to obtain some
information as to how he should found a Conference in his
native village, he was joyfully received, and the dying man

Life and Works of Frederic Ozanatn. 339

would gather up his strength to converse witli him for two
hours. The surest way to rouse, and even reheve him, was to
give him the opportunity of doing good.

There were a few kind famihes on the coast who used to
come and see him often ; amongst them the Ferruccis, so
well known now through the fame of their saintly Rosa.
Ozanam enjoyed their visits so long as he was able to see
any one; but none, perhaps, were so tenderly welcome as
those of his brothers of St. Vincent de Paul. It was indeed
touching to see their cordial affection for him, and the simple,
kindly ways they had of showing it. Three young men who
lived near Leghorn came constantly to see him, then merely
to ask how he was, and if they could not be of any use by
doing some little commission at Leghorn for Madame Oza-
nam. One afternoon they came laden with flowers and a
provision of ice and snow, which was not to be had at An-
tignano; he was in great pain accompanied with fever; they
went away with sad hearts. About three o'clock the same
morning the servant was awoke by a noise as of sand flung at
the window; it was the young men, who had come back
with more ice, unable in their anxiety to pass all night with-
out-news of the sick man; they were going to walk back
again, but Madame Ozanam insisted on their resting the re-
mainder of the night at the villa. The fishermen and peas-'
ants of the neighborhood had grown attached to the " saintly
stranger," and carried their graceful tribute of sympathy in
flowers and fruit to him, and assuredly none were more grate-
fully received by the humble and loving heart that so prized
the affection of simple souls.

From the beginning of August he was not able to go be-;
yond the terrace before the house; on the eve of the 15th,
however, he declared he would go to the church and hear
Mass the next day. His heart seemed so set on it that his
wife had not the courage to oppose him ; accordingly she
sent to Leghorn to order a carriage ; but when Ozanam
heard this, he said he preferred to walk. " If it is to be my

340 Life and Works of Frederic Ozanatn.

last walk on earth, let it be to the house of God on the Feast
of the Assumption !" he said ; and so, leaning on her whom
he so truly called his guardian angel, he set out on foot.
The villagers knew he was coming, and assembled outside
the church, to testify their affectionate sympathy. As Oza-
nam came slowly on, looking like a spirit in his transparent

= pallor, the men all bared their heads, and the women and
children greeted him with a pretty wave of the hand, their
graceful manner of saluting. He was moved to tears by the
homage.

But another more touching still awaited him. The old cure
of Antignano was dying; but when he heard that Ozanam
had come to the church, and wished to receive Communion
before Mass, he said to those about him, "Get me up; I
must give it to him ; no one else shall have that privilege."
They dressed him, and he was assisted downstairs. The
church was garlanded with flowers, and brilliantly lighted up
in honor of Our Lady's Assumption; the contadini, too, wore
their gala dresses in her honor. Chance seemed to have in-
vested the scene with the grace and glory of a bridal pageant ;
but there were tears instead of smiles amongst the spectators
when the husband, supported by his young wife, advanced to
the altar, and knelt down by her side, they two alone, as they

_had been twelve years ago on that other bridal day of which
this was the crown and completion. The dying priest, assist-
ed likewise in his weakness, came forth and administered
Communion to them, and then was led away. It was the
last time he exercised his priestly office on earth ; he never

■left his room again ; neither was Ozanam ever again present

'at the holy sacrifice.

Three days after this he added a codicil to his will, which
had been made at Pisa on his birthday. It is dated the i8th
August, 1853, Antignano. The following is an extract from
the will itself:

" In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. ... I
commit my soul to Jesus Christ my Saviour ; with fear because of my sins, but

Life and Works of Frederic Ozaiiam. 341

confiding in infinite mercy, I die in the bosom of the Catholic, Apostolic, and
; Roman Church. I have known the doubts of the present age, but all my life
has convinced me that there is no rest for the mind and the heart except in the
faith of that Church and under her authority. If I attach any value to my long
studies, it is because they give me the right to entreat those I love to remain
faithful to a religion where I found hght and peace.

" My supreme prayer to my wife, my child, my brothers and brothers-in-law,
and all those who may be bom of them, is to persevere in the faith, in spite of
the humiliations, the scandals, and the desertions they will be witness of.

" To my tender Amelie, who has made the joy of my hfe, and whose de-
voted care has consoled my long sufferings, I address a farewell — short, like all
earthly things. I thank her, 1 bless her, I await her. It is only in heaven that
I shall be able to give her back all the love she deser\-es. I give to my child
the blessing of the patriarchs, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost. It grieves me not to be able to carry on further the dear labor of
her education, but I confide it without fear to her \-irtuous mother.

' ' To my brothers Alphonse and Charles 1 offer my sincere gratitude for
their affection — to my brother Charles especially, for the anxious care my
health has caused him. To my mother, Madame Soulacroix, to Charles Sou-
lacroix, I give a rendez^•ous amidst those over whom we have wept together.
I embrace in one thought all those whom I cannot mention here by name. . . .
I thank once more all those who have been kind to me. I ask pardon for my
hastiness and bad example. I implore the prayers of my friends, of the Soci-
ety of St. Vincent de Paul.

"Let not your zeal be slackened by those who will say. He is in heaven.
Pray unceasingly for one who loved you all much, but who has sinned much.
Sure of your supplications, dear, kind friends, I shall leave this world with less
fear. I firmly hope that we shall not be separated, and that I shall remain in
the midst of you untU you rejoin me.

" May the blessing of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost rest
upon all of you. Amen."

He now grew rapidly worse. His brothers were sent for ;
the news went forth to his friends to pray for him — that he
was dying. All felt it as a private grief and a great public
loss.

" The last news of M. Ozanam is heart-breaking," the Abb^ Perreyve writes.
" Charles had a telegram from Madame Ozanam four days ago, saying that
the dear invalid is in a state of extreme weakness. ... I cannot tell you the
profound griet that this telegram has been to the hearts of all those who knew
and loved M. Ozanam. What a loss for all that was right, rehgion, truth !
But, above all, what a loss for me, whom he loved ! I assure you that his death
will be for me a great sorrow, and I would give many days of my own life to
redeem it. How feeble our prayers are ! Are there no more saints any-

342 Life a?id Works of Frederic Ozanam.

where ? And who was more worthy of a miracle, if a miracle there must
be?

" But I will stifle the murmurs that are rising in the depths of my heart.
God has His own designs on souls. There are those whom He means to make
into great saints, and who therefore have need of great sorrows. . . . But
meanwhile this is sad, and calls for tears. Pray for him in your Mass. Who
knows } Perhaps God is only waiting for a last great effort on our part to
grant us this grace. For my part, I could ask nothing yesterday of our Lord
but that He would grant him the grace of a calm death, without agony, with
sure hope of heavenly rest. The mere sound of the word rest has something
appropriate and touching in it applied to that sensitive, impressionable soul. O
how he will enjoy that serenity of bliss, whose very foundation is the immuta-
bility of God ! " *

Yet Ozanam was far from enjoying this serene sense of se-
curity which others felt regarding him. He had always had
a great fear of death, or rather of what makes death terrible —
judgment; and now that the shadow of the Great White
Throne was upon him, this feeling deepened in intensity. He
spoke frequently of his sins, of the punishment they merited,
of the scandal they had caused, the world expecting so much
from Catholics, who profess to embody the faith in their
actions. Once, when he seemed more than usually impressed
by these considerations, one near him thought to soothe him
by suggesting tenderly that after all he had not been such a
great sinner; but Ozanam answered quickly, in a tone of
austere humility, " Child, you do not know what the sanctity
of God is!"

His piety seemed to grow more fervent as his bodily pros-
tration increased. He read the Bible almost constantly now,
and would remain for hours rapt in meditation on it, express-
ing himself from time to time in a sublime manner on various
passages, in the Psalms and the Book of Job especially. The
words of Scripture took such complete possession of his mind
that they made him oblivious of what was going on around
him. It had always been a great pain to him to inflict the
least trouble or fatigue on others, but now that his condition
exacted more laborious attendance than ever, he submitted to

•This letter is dated "Augusts" in the collection of the Abbe Perreyve's letters, but it is
clearly a mistake. Charles did not rejoin his brother until quite the end of August.

Life and Jf'orks of Frederic Ozanatn. 343

it almost unconsciously ; it was sufficient to recite aloud some
verses of the Psalms while he was suffering most to make him
forget his own pain and the distress of those who were striv-
mg ro alleviate it. He frequently greeted his wife with those
words which he loved to apply to himself: *' It has been
written at the beginning of the Book that I should do Thy
will, my God. I have willed it, and placed Thy law in the
midst of my heart." He lived almost out of doors, stretched
on his sofa, which had been wheeled out to the terrace, and
there he would lie silent for hours with the Bible open by his
side. One evening he lay thus, watching the sun sinking into
the blue Mediterranean ; his wife had drawn her chair a little
behind him, that he might not see the tears she could not
restrain, when something in the extreme serenity of his coun-
tenance prompted her to ask which of all the gifts of God he
considered the greatest. He replied without hesitating,
as if the question had fallen in with his own thoughts,
" Peace of heart ; without this we may possess everything and
yet not be happy ; with it we can bear the hardest trials and
the approach of death."

A itw days later they were sitting together on the terrace lis-
tening to the murmur of summer seas and the birds singing in
the ilex grove, whenOzanam, afteralong silence, began to speak
with regret of his interrupted work. "If anything consoles me,"
he said, " for leaving this world without having accomplished
what I wished to do, it is that I have never worked for the
praise of men, but always for the service of truth." Such a
testimony was indeed a consolation worthy of his noble life,
Ozanam thought he had lived to no purpose ; that his life
had been a failure because he left his work unfinished. It is
always so with souls like his. They trace the furrow and
scatter the seed, and then pass on, leaving others to come and
reap the fruit. No man ever fully achieved his life's pro-
gramme except Him who came down from heaven to do His
Father's business, and, having done it, died.

For the last twelve years of his life Ozanam had the grace-

344 Life and Works oj Frederic Ozanam.

ful habit of presenting some flowers to his wife on the 23d of
every month, the date of their marriage. He remembered it
now, and when the festive day came round, he greeted her in
the morning with a branch of lovely flowering myrtle, which
he had sent for to the shore, having heard her admire it.

On the last day of August they left Antignano. His two
brothers had arrived to take him back to France. He had
prayed for this last grace, to be allowed to die in his own
country and amongst his own people. When all was ready
for the departure, and the carriage awaited him at the door,
he expressed a wish to go and look upon the sea once more;
his wife and one of his brothers assisted him to the terrace, and
he stood for a moment gazing at the waves breaking upon the
beach ; then, baring his head in the sunlight, he lifted up his
hands and said aloud, " O my God ! I thank Thee for the
afflictions and tlie sufferings Thou hast sent me in this place;
accept them in expiation ot my sins." Then, turning to his
wife, he said, ** I should like you, too, to give thanks with me
for my sufferings."

They prayed in silence for a moment, and then, clasping
her in his arms, he cried out, " And, O my Lord ! I bless
Thee for the consolations Thou hast granted me."

He was assisted on deck, and lay there watching the shores
of Italy till they faded from his view. The sea was calm as a
lake, the skies were cloudless. He bore the voyage without
much apparent fatigue. As the shores of Provence came in
sight, he burst out into subdued tlianksgiving at being per-
mitted to see France again. When the vessel entered the
harbor of Marseilles, he roused himself as with a last effort,
and said almost cheerfully to his mother-in law, and other
members of his wife's family who had come to meet him,
" Now that I have placed Amelie in the proper hands, God
may do what He sees fit with me ! "

He cherished the hope ol going on to Paris, and dying
amidst the scenes ol his labors ; but this wish was not grant-
ed; he was far too exhausted to bear the additional journey.

Life and IVorks of Frederic Ozauam. 345

His arrival at Marseilles was quickly known, and the
brotherhood of St. Vincent de Paul hastened to his door with
every testimony of sorrow and respect. He was too ill to see
any of them, but he was greatly touched to hear of their con-
stant visits. Nothing could surpass the serenity that his soul
now enjoyed ; every trace of fear, of apprehension had vanish-
ed : all bodily suffering had likewise ceased, and he appeared
like one already dwelling in the sensible presence of God;
he seldom spoke, but communed still with his beloved ones
by a pressure of the hand, a sign, and that smile that lay like
'a halo on the wasted face, touching it already with the peace
that passeth all understanding. Feeling that the end was
near, he himself asked for the last sacraments, and received
them with great fervor and the liveliest consciousness. When
all was over, his brother, remembering how keenly he had
feared the Divine judgments, urged him gently to have con-
fidence in the great mercy of God ; but Ozanam, as if he un-
derstood not the allusion, answered with a look of sweet sur-
prise, " Why should I fear Him ? I love Him so much ! "

On the evening of the 8th of September, the Feast of Our
Lady's Nativity, the summons came. His wife was beside
him, and his brothers, and a few near relatives. The adjoin-
ing room was crowded with those other brothers, the members
of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, who knelt in silence,
joining in the prayers that were speeding their founder into
the presence of his Judge. He had fallen into a gentle slum-
ber, waking up at intervals to murmur a blessing, a word of
love, an invocation.

Suddenly opening his dark eyes in a wide, startled gaze, he
lifted up his hands and cried out in a loud voice, " My God !
my God ! have mercy on me! "

They were his last words. Frederic Ozanam had passed
into the light of his Redeemer's presence.

gmDiNG SECT„ nov 8 W^

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CARDS OR SUPS FROM THIS POCKET

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY

BX O'Meara, Kathleen

4.705 Frederic Ozainam, professor

08 at the Sorbonne

06

1891

fo9